Postgraduate Course: Future Infrastructure Policy, Innovation and Society (Online) (EFIE11495)
Course Outline
| School | Edinburgh Futures Institute |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
| Course type | Online Distance Learning |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | *Programme Core Course: Future Infrastructure, Climate Change and Sustainability (MSc)*
Please Note:
This course is only available to students enrolled on the Future Infrastructure, Climate Change and Sustainability (MSc) degree programme.
Global climate change is driving an accelerated shift in policy and innovation to support a just transition to meet societal need. Synergetic demands by so many countries with net zero policies is also creating market shift in low carbon technologies and materials. New policies and innovation should primarily do no harm, plan for co-benefits and drive transformational change. This course will support the student through the journey of policy and innovation pathways providing insights to equip them into the complexity of addressing future infrastructure and societal challenges. |
| Course description |
During this course, students will have the opportunity to investigate the role of policy and innovation for future infrastructure and societal need. Students will learn about previous policies and innovations and reflect on what has worked or not worked in their delivery, impact and outcomes. This will provide a context to the development of critical analysis and recognizing the barriers and constraints. Topics covered will include technology readiness levels, policy interventions, critical pathways and backcasting.
This then allows the student to develop a deeper knowledge and understanding to apply to their coursework they will produce via an 'investigative report' supported by a structured template they are provided with. Utilising local to international case studies the students understand the socio-economic, planning and environmental factors to consider in developing policies or innovations which can benefit future society.
Edinburgh Futures Institute (EFI) - Online Hybrid Course Delivery Information:
The Edinburgh Futures Institute will teach this course in a way that enables online and on-campus students to study together. To enable this, the course will use technologies to record and live-stream student and staff participation during their teaching and learning activities. Students should note that their interactions may be recorded and live-streamed (see the Lecture Recording and Virtual Classroom policies for more details). There will, however, be options to control whether or not your video and audio are enabled.
You will need access to a personal computing device for this course. Most activities will take place in a web browser, unless otherwise stated. We recommend using a device with a screen, a physical keyboard, and internet access.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2026/27, Not available to visiting students (SS1)
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Quota: None |
| Course Start |
Semester 2 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Lecture Hours 20,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
176 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
The course will be assessed by means of the following components:
1) Investigative Report (80%)
A max 3,500 of words. A structured template will be provided. Students have an option to choose either a specific Policy or Innovation for their investigative report.
2) Groupwork Risk Analysis (20%)
Groupwork risk analysis of various countries- A template is provided for this. |
| Feedback |
Feedback on any formative assessment may be provided in various formats, for example, to include written, oral, video, face-to-face, whole class, or individual. The Course Organiser will decide which format is most appropriate in relation to the nature of the assessment.
Feedback on both formative and summative in-course assessed work will be provided in time to be of use in subsequent assessments within the course.
Feedback on the summative assessment(s) will be provided in written form via Learn, the University of Edinburgh's Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Demonstrate a critical understanding of the infrastructure climate change policies in addressing key challenges.
- Apply critical analysis of data-driven evidence in investigating policy or new innovation pathways and demonstrating an understanding of the complexity and societal impacts arising.
- Critically review proposals by government bodies and infrastructure and the role of data and society.
- Develop skills to present and analyse the SWOT of a new innovation to address climate change factors.
- Demonstrate some originality and creative insight in understanding the synergies and also the differences in a multi-complex critical pathway for infrastructure policy or new innovation.
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Reading List
Essential Reading:
Hao Han, Xuemei Bai, Liang Dong, (2025) Global policy stocktake of urban climate resilience: A literature review. Journal of Resources, Conservation and Recycling, Volume 212, ISSN 0921-3449, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2024.107923.
Rosenow, J, Eyre, N. (2016) A post mortem of the Green Deal: Austerity, energy efficiency, and failure in British energy policy. Energy Research & Social Science, Volume 21, Pages 141-144, ISSN 2214-6296, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2016.07.005.
Climate change, innovation and jobs https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10.3763/cpol.2008.0513?needAccess=true
Xuemei Bai (2018) Six research priorities for cities and climate change. Nature, Vol 555 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-02409-z.pdf?utm_source=scopus&getft_integrator=scopus
Fighting climate change with innovation (also audio version) https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/2021/09/bezos-earth-fund-climate-change
From Policy Adoption to Practice: Comparative Analysis of Innovation Institutionalization Paths https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/13876988.2024.2325500#abstract
Recommended Reading:
The world lost the climate gamble. Now it faces a dangerous new reality. https://theconversation.com/the-world-lost-the-climate-gamble-now-it-faces-a-dangerous-new-reality-270392
Washington S. (2022) An infrastructure for building policy capability - lessons from practice , https://doi.org/10.1080/25741292.2022.2139952
Arcadis (2024) Natural Capital Evaluation Tool. https://www.aiib.org/en/news-events/media-center/blog/2024/Natural-Capital-Valuation-A-Tool-to-Incorporate-Nature-while-Designing-Development-Projects.html |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Not entered |
| Keywords | Climate Change,Infrastructure,Resilience,Futures,Environment,Adaptation |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Prof Sean Smith
Tel:
Email: Sean.Smith@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Miss Yasmine Lewis
Tel:
Email: yasmine.lewis@ed.ac.uk |
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