Sustainable Development, Culture and Heritage

Sustainable development, culture and heritage is a programme that brings together three fields with a common concern: understanding how human communities relate to their environments, their pasts and their futures. Sustainable development examines how societies can meet their economic, social and environmental needs without compromising the ability of future generations to do the same, drawing on ecology, economics, policy and ethics. Culture and heritage studies examines how communities construct meaning, identity and belonging through shared practices, traditions, sites and stories.

Together they address questions about how places are valued, preserved, adapted and sustained over time.

At the University of the Highlands and Islands, this part-time programme is taught in an institution with particularly close connections to the cultural and natural heritage of the Scottish Highlands and Islands, a region of extraordinary landscape, Gaelic culture, distinctive history and ongoing questions about land use, tourism, depopulation and sustainable futures. This context gives the programme a distinctive grounding in live questions and real places, rather than purely theoretical frameworks.

You will study the principles of sustainable development, environmental management, heritage interpretation and policy, cultural tourism, community development and the ethical dimensions of heritage practice. Both the conservation of cultural sites and the living cultures of communities are addressed, alongside the economic realities of sustaining them.

Graduates go on to careers in heritage management, cultural tourism, community development, environmental organisations, local government, planning, arts and cultural organisations and sustainable development roles in the public, private and voluntary sectors. Some go on to postgraduate study in heritage studies, sustainable development, cultural geography or related fields.