Course summary

A new, interdisciplinary degree with Edinburgh Futures Institute The MSc Cultural Heritage Futures has been designed to shape the future of the heritage sector. Through this interdisciplinary and challenge-driven programme, students will become creative heritage professionals committed to data-informed innovation with social purpose. The programme is based on a critical understanding of heritage as the contemporary processes and outcomes of interacting with tangible and intangible aspects of the past and attributing cultural and social meanings to them. Students will be introduced to cutting-edge theory, digital skills, future-facing social science methods, policies and practices that equip them to create, enhance, preserve, communicate, and research heritage in ways that address pressing social and environmental issues at local to global scales. Upon completion, students will be able to address questions such as: how can we decolonise museum collections and heritage sites through data activism? how can ocean heritage contribute to sustainable local economies? how do we negotiate between human and non-human rights, including animal rights, in heritage conservation practice? how can transnational heritage site management help peace-building in countries affected by violent conflict? MSc Cultural Heritage Futures will be taught with a sensitivity that attends to decolonisation and a truly international outlook. Courses will draw on examples and case studies from different geographic areas including the Global North, South, East, and West. The programme team consists of a unique blending of leading academics at the University of Edinburgh, who collaborate with heritage organisations in Scotland, the UK and internationally (e.g. UNESCO, ICCROM, Aliph, ICOMOS, Historic Environment Scotland, Historic England, National Museum Scotland, Museum of London Archaeology). Students will benefit from interactions with these heritage professionals and from the collaborative and making spaces at Edinburgh Futures Institute, which will help them to undertake creative, co-design and digital activities collaboratively.