Master of Regional & Urban Planning  (W178)

The Master of Regional and Urban Planning programme is a one-year professional planning programme, providing graduates with the requisite skills and knowledge to begin a career as a professional planner.. The MRUP is aimed at providing an integrated and inclusive understanding of the challenges required to create places that combine environmental quality, with a vibrant economy, good quality of life and distributive justice. The programme is underpinned by a critical and questioning approach aimed at equipping our students with intellectual confidence and the professional and ethical judgement to make decisions, which promote and ensure sustainable spatial development and manage environmental change.  The programme fosters a learning environment that draws on the research and expertise of our academic staff, combined with insights from innovative practitioners in the planning, development and environmental fields.

Uniquely, we can draw on our location in Dublin and Ireland to reflect on the challenges of a rapidly developing vibrant city and modern economy set in an unsurpassed natural environment.  The MRUP utilises a mix of lectures, hands on computer lab based work, group projects in a studio setting, regular student presentations, independent research, competitive internship opportunities, and academic and professional writing, to provide graduates with the requisite skills and knowledge needed in the rapidly changing global environment facing planning.

• Apply knowledge and research skills to generate integrated and well substantiated responses to spatial planning challenges at various spatial scales.
• Appreciate planning and environmental policy research, exhibit the skills of autonomous researchers and recognize the value of research as an input into improved planning policy and practice.
• Appreciate societal diversity and recognize the importance of equity and equality of opportunity in spatial planning processes.
• Communicate effectively verbally, graphically and through written documents and to communicate ideas, concepts, knowledge and conclusions to peers, specialist and non-specialist audiences within an interdisciplinary environment.
• Demonstrate effective research, analytical, evaluative and appraisal skills and the ability to reach appropriate evidence based planning decisions.
• Diagnose problems, define solutions and make decisions based on balancing a range of competing professional and stakeholder interests.

On successful completion of the programme students should be able to

• Understand how spatial planning operates within the context of political, institutional and legal frameworks, and understand the wider social, economic, political and environmental context for planning sustainable environments
• Understand the challenges and responsibilities of balancing competing economic, social and environmental requirements in shaping space, will be open to critically assessing these, reflecting on them and acting in a professional and ethical manner in the interests of the common good
• Work effectively both on their own as part of a team in an interdisciplinary context

Graduates of the MRUP are to be found working as professional planners in the public and private sector, as GIS consultants, as policy advisors, property  development consultants, and as community & rural development coordinators. Our graduates have found employment with: national and international planning  agencies, government departments, local authorities including urban and rural authorities in Ireland, the UK, Australia and New Zealand; transportation agencies including the National Transport Authority; planning consultancy firms including Tom Philips and Associates, Brock McClure Planning and Development Consultants, and KPMG Future Analytics consulting; urban regeneration companies,  large house builders including Glenveagh Properties; wind and solar energy companies including Eirgrid and ABO Wind, and environmental NGOs including An Taisce.

• An honours undergraduate degree (NFQ Level 8) with a minimum upper second class honours or international equivalence in a cognate discipline including Geography, Sociology, Economics, Politics, Social Science, Law, Engineering, Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Property Economics, Surveying and/or equivalent relevant professional experience. Those with other degree qualifications may apply but will be required to undertake an interview.
• Applicants whose first language is not English must also demonstrate English language proficiency of IELTS 6.5 (no band less than 6.0 in each element), or equivalent.
• These are the minimum entry requirements – additional criteria may be requested for some programmes