Geography/Social & Public Policy

Geography and social and public policy is a combination that links the spatial analysis of how people live on Earth with the policy frameworks designed to improve those lives. Geography examines the variability in physical and human landscapes, the interrelationships binding them together, and the processes, from coastal management and environmental hazards to migration, urbanisation, and inequality, that shape the world we inhabit. Social and public policy asks how governments and societies respond to those conditions: how welfare systems are designed, how public services are funded and evaluated, and how policy decisions affect different communities in different ways.

The four-year full-time Geography and Social and Public Policy programme at the University of Glasgow is a combination with natural synergies, since the best geography is always attentive to the social and political dimensions of spatial change, and the best policy analysis is always attentive to place and context. You will study geography as a dynamic, relevant, and ever-changing subject at the heart of many local and global current issues, developing skills in qualitative and statistical data analysis and independent research that are attractive to a wide range of employers. Alongside this, your social and public policy studies will examine how public institutions are organised, how policy is made and evaluated, and what the evidence tells us about the effectiveness of different approaches to social problems.

A year abroad gives you the opportunity to experience these disciplines in a different national context, which deepens your comparative understanding of how geography and policy interact.

Graduates pursue careers in local and central government, urban planning, housing, social policy research, international development, environmental management, and the voluntary sector, as well as in academia. Postgraduate study in urban planning, public policy, geography, or social science research is a well-travelled next step.