Public Policy and Management

Our MSc Public Policy and Management is ideal if you are working, or seeking a career, in public policy research and implementation. You will gain an advanced understanding of the ideas, interests and institutions that contribute to the making of policy across a wide range of areas, including healthcare, society and social care, migration, the environment, education and macroeconomics.

This course will give you insights into how policy choices are made, in comparison to policy developing by default, without clear choices or the establishment of priorities and strategies. Alongside this, you will also consider management in the public sector, analysing the issues involved in making decisions about how public services are managed.

You will explore how the different parts of national and local government interact and how the private sector is involved in the implementation of public policy. Overall, you will acquire the essential skills needed for the systematic analysis of government policies and for the professional practice of policy formulation and implementation.

The course is highly topical, considering up-to-the-minute concerns and real-world debates within contemporary UK politics.

This degree is part of our new Birkbeck Flexible Master’s UK, which gives you the choice of how you want to study - on campus, online or via flexible learning, which combines both.

• Birkbeck is a world-renowned centre of original, influential research in politics. We organise a lively programme of seminars and conferences and are home to affiliated research centres, such as the Birkbeck Centre for British Political Life, which run seminars, conferences and other events where some of the world's best scholars present their latest research.
• Our academic staff are international authorities in their respective fields, publishing and delivering stimulating teaching in a wide range of political topics including civil society and the state, public policy, development, gender, international security and terrorism, and social and political theory, among others.