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‘System integrators’ for urban transformation and research
This Master’s Programme is an interdisciplinary research and practice programme that prepares learners to take part in the equitable and sustainable transformation of India’s settlements across the rural–urban continuum. It is designed to create ‘system integrators’ who work across the silos of disciplines and sectors within the urban, as well as a generation of interdisciplinary urban researchers, who work across disciplinary boundaries.
The Programme has two distinct parts. Taking a systems approach, the first roots urban studies and practice into key systems: governance, financing, infrastructure development, and planning, as well as economic and environmental systems, with an emphasis on India. It trains urban practitioners to see how these systems are interconnected and builds a foundational and interdisciplinary understanding of the urban and the rural–urban transition. The second part then equips learners to delve deeper into particular kinds of urban systems through a wide range of Elective Courses that form the majority of course offerings, which help learners gain depth either in applied and interdisciplinary urban research or intersectoral urban practice.
Across these two parts, the Programme focuses equally on theory, as well as policy, programmes, and practice. Learners will be equipped with a core understanding of policies and programmatic interventions within urban studies and practice, and trained to design and implement interventions and programmes in the complex reality of Indian cities, regions, towns, and villages. This is complemented by rigorous training in interdisciplinary methods of urban research and practice.
The Master of Arts in Urban Studies and Practice is a two-year, interdisciplinary, full-time degree programme. Each academic year consists of three terms of around 11–13 weeks each.
This Programme is structured between Core Courses in the first year, where an interdisciplinary foundation across urban systems is built. From the third term in the first year and through the second year, learners shift to a wide range of Elective Courses that allow them to build depth within specific interdisciplinary urban themes.
Foundation Courses, focused on holistic and integral personal development, run through both years. It is this framing of Foundation, Core, and Elective Courses that allows the University to pedagogically achieve interdisciplinary knowledge in a transformative manner.
The second year ends with an independent internship, project and/or dissertation.
The Foundation Courses are a set of learning experiences, interactions, and credit courses grounded in Indian culture and experiential contexts including local and traditional knowledge. These will help build a set of personal and professional capacities through experiential learning outside conventional classroom settings and enable the learner to imbibe a set of sensibilities and capacities grounded in the values enshrined in the Indian Constitution.
Foundation Courses facilitate holistic human development and integral learning engagement with the importance of being situated, committed, and empathetic while handling situations outside one’s comfort zone and dealing with situations of conflict. Some of the skills, abilities, and sensibilities that learners will be exposed to include Physical Culture, Art and Labour, Nature and Environment, Self-Awareness and Reflection, and Philosophical Orientation and Ethics.
An interdisciplinary and intersectoral foundation is necessary for effective urban research and practice. Urban studies and practice cannot be studied in isolation from its relationship to the built environment, economic systems, the environment, governance, and social structures.
Year 1, Terms 1 and 2: In the first two terms, learners take three kinds of Core Courses that are required for all Master’s programmes at the University. These are Core Theory Courses, Core Methods Courses, and Core Practica. These courses lay the interdisciplinary foundation across a set of urban systems and help learners see the process of urbanisation through social, economic, spatial, governance, infrastructural, and ecological lenses. They also establish competency in core skills and methods, including qualitative, quantitative, geospatial, and mixed methods; and expose learners to place- and field-based applied learning.
Core Practica is a field-based applied learning course, where theoretical concepts learnt in the classrooms are applied on field through learning-by-doing. Based in neighbourhoods of Bengaluru, learners first learn how to observe, document, and analyse different aspects of an urban neighbourhood. They then move to propositions, suggesting solutions to problems they observe and identify.
Year 1, Term 3: Learners start specialising in urban studies and practice in the third term. They begin with two required courses that locate them in the history and theory of urban studies and practice, and can select any one course from Term 3 of any other Master’s Programme at the University.
Year 2, Terms 4 and 5: Learners choose from the various interdisciplinary Elective Courses offered across all Master’s programmes at the University, as well as others on urban ecology, history, national missions, regulation, cinema, development communications, and risk and resilience, among others. Learners also continue learning-by-doing courses, building on the Core Practica in Year 1. They can also pursue skill enhancement Elective Courses, as well as more inter-sectoral skills, methods, and practices
Year 2, Term 6: This term is focused on learning-by-doing. Through an external internship, learners apply what they have learnt and transition into post-graduation employment pathways. Learners can also choose to do independent research dissertations, mentored by faculty. This involves undertaking primary, original, and substantive research that results in independent academic writing towards publication.
The Master of Arts in Urban Studies and Practice programme welcomes candidates from diverse academic and professional backgrounds seeking an interdisciplinary approach to understanding and shaping cities. The Programme will equip them to go beyond disciplinary silos and professional sectors, to be system integrators and researchers who can shape urban futures.
Graduates of the Master of Arts in Urban Studies and Practice will have a wide range of career options:
