"We need to be able to explore what matters to us, but in a guided way. The MA has really enabled me to do that."
Kathy Rethy
KAR Development Inc.
Educational approach and learning environment
Action research
The MA in Leadership for Sustainability is centrally concerned with the relationship between ideas and practice – and how these can inform one another. For participants, it involves critically assessing the latest theories and practice relating to sustainability, leadership and change, and exploring – through individually tailored pieces of action research – how these can be applied to their everyday practice.
In this way, over the two years of the MA, participants not only develop their own thinking and practice but can also take action that will help their organisations or communities to move forward.
This is an approach that draws on the Department of Management Learning and Leadership's ‘gold standard’ reputation – as noted in a recent quality assessment – for critical inquiry and action research. To this is added the expertise of specialists from many other disciplines, notably from the University’s top-rated Lancaster Environment Centre, and guest speakers from industry and academia.
Core themes combined with negotiated curriculum
The programme workshops tackle broad areas of leadership and sustainability, focusing on resources of ideas and practice we have identified as being core to people's capacity to take leadership for sustainability. As the programme progresses, significant aspects of the curriculum are negotiated collaboratively, in line with the individual and collective interests of participants – enabling you to follow up key issues and areas of concern.
Active learning and peer support
Central to the programme’s philosophy is the notion of active learning as part of a self-managed ‘learning community’. This demands that all participants work very closely together and with tutors – in face-to-face encounters and online – to challenge and support one another in taking ideas forward into their own professional practice. This interaction with your peers and with tutors is a key element not only while you are with the group but also between sessions, when you are back in your day-to-day environment.
New to action research?
Discover more about how action research can be used to open up new approaches to resolving organisational issues and dilemmas.
Learning sets
The learning sets typically consist of four to six students and a tutor. The set may occasionally arrange to meet face-to-face between workshop sessions, but mostly you will meet online – vital for ensuring the creation of a rich learning environment. Skype and telephone conferencing may also be used.
The sets help you to identify the action learning topics on which you will base your assignments. Via constructive feedback from colleagues and tutors, they also help support you in producing critically reflective assignments that will inform your practice. And they provide a confidential forum in which members can discuss personal and professional issues relating to their experiences and capacities as change agents or to their career development.
Virtual learning environment
We provide the training needed to participate in the programme's specially designed virtual learning environment which provides a forum for online discussion, on an asynchronous basis. The advantage of this is that all participants can engage in online debate in their own time – to fit with other commitments and regardless of time zones.
You will also have access to journal articles, bibliographies and other web-based resources through the online services of the University Library.
