Department of Archaeology | MA International Cultural Heritage Management

MA International Cultural Heritage Management at Durham University

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Study the impact of cultural heritage around the world and fire up your interest in the way it reflects people’s lives in the past and the present, as well as the role it plays in shaping the future.

The MA in International Cultural Heritage Management explores the key issues of cultural heritage management around the world and its influence on a grand scale on society and on people’s lives. You will come to understand how cultural heritage management offers a sense of identity, maintains social diversity and cohesion, and enables dialogue between cultures. 

You will learn how successful heritage management plays a vital role in education, cultural protection, conflict migration and sustainable development and the way cultural heritage is an essential tool in helping to meet UN Sustainable Development Goals. 

However, heritage management is not without its challenges and this course will also introduce you to the issues it faces across the world from the increasingly faster pace of global change and development, the growing demand for larger infrastructure, mass tourism, encroachment, neglect, climate change, natural disasters and targeted destruction, for example in wars and conflicts.

The course benefits from the university’s location within a UNESCO World Heritage Site and examines cultural heritage management from a local, national and international perspective. It will provide the foundations for both academic and professional career choices, in either cultural heritage research or the professional practice route.

We believe cultural heritage forms part of our basic right to participate in cultural life and we aim to create the next generation of leaders in the field, equipping you with the skills to address its many and complex challenges as well as contributing to the successes of developing cultural heritage in an increasingly globalised and changeable world.

There are two routes through the MA: the Cultural Heritage Research route which concludes with a dissertation, and the Professional Practice Route which concludes with an analytical case study report.

Many of our postgraduates move into an academic career, either teaching or by taking up post-doctoral research positions in universities. Others join museums or national and regional heritage organisations. Some work in professional archaeology, in national or local planning departments, while others elect to use their analytical and presentation skills to gain positions in industry, commerce and government.

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