Environmental Science and Politics

Environmental science and politics is a combination for people who recognise that environmental challenges cannot be understood or addressed without engaging with politics. The climate crisis, the loss of biodiversity, the management of water, land, and energy, and the transition to more sustainable ways of living are all profoundly political as well as scientific issues. Environmental science gives you the tools to understand what is happening to natural systems and why.

Politics gives you the frameworks to understand how decisions about those systems are made, who has power over them, and what it takes to change course.

At the University of Stirling this four-year full-time programme includes a year abroad, giving you the opportunity to study in another country and to encounter different approaches to environmental policy and governance. You will develop scientific literacy in ecology, environmental chemistry, climate science, and environmental assessment alongside political science skills in comparative politics, international relations, environmental policy, and the theory of political change. The combination trains you to move fluently between empirical evidence and policy argument, which is exactly the kind of thinking that environmental challenges require.

Graduates from environmental science and politics programmes work in environmental consultancy and impact assessment, government and regulatory bodies, international environmental organisations, NGOs, policy research, journalism, and the growing field of sustainability management in the private sector. The ability to understand both the science and the politics of environmental issues is a distinctive and increasingly valued combination. Many graduates go on to postgraduate study in environmental policy, sustainability, international relations, or environmental science, while others pursue professional development in law, planning, or public administration.

For anyone motivated by the urgent task of building a more sustainable world, this degree provides a genuinely integrated preparation.