Fire & Rescue firefighter gently carries a young boy away from an emergency truck, the child resting his head on the responder’s shoulder.

Postgraduate Certificate in Disaster, Risk, and Resilience

Explore the issues of managing risk and responding to disasters, food insecurity, and conflict.

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Time investment: 1 year full-time, 2 years part-time

Location: Online

Cost: £4,900

Language: English

About this degree

Develop the skills you need for successful global disaster intervention

Disasters and armed conflict have occurred in human existence throughout history.

Whether you’re looking to start your career in disaster intervention or are a current practitioner seeking to update your knowledge, this degree is designed to grow your expertise and capacity to identify, analyse, interpret and manage risk and disaster issues in the developing and developed world.

You’ll cover the topics of disaster management, humanitarian assistance, capacity building and disaster risk reduction to help minimalise loss when a disaster strikes.

Where you’ll be studying

Studying at Coventry University

Coventry secured 5 QS Stars for Teaching and Online Learning in the QS World University Ranking 2020 and has received No. 1 in the world for Massive Open Online Courses in MoocLab’s World University Ranking 2021.

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Learning outcomes

A comprehensive evaluation of risk, its components and influencing factors, approaches to assessment, and prioritisation and organisational role in planning, managing and recovering from humanitarian crises and disasters.

A detailed knowledge of policy and approaches for mitigating, preparing for, managing and recovering from crises, conflict and disasters for responding agencies, organisations and affected communities.

A thorough comprehension of approaches to assessing complexity and interaction and developing, monitoring and evaluating resilience in processes, systems, organisations and communities at risk from known and emergent threats in a sustainable way.

A detailed analysis of multi-stakeholder engagement, communication, cooperation and governance in all aspects of policy and strategy development, implementation and management, at all scales in disaster contexts.

An ability to manage information, evaluate uncertainty, ambiguity and complexity in knowledge, method and management and to make appropriate and defensible decisions for managing complex disaster situations.

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Additional information

The criteria for entry are:

A 2:2 undergraduate degree (or equivalent) in a relevant discipline.
Applicants with a lower class of degree and/or with a qualification in other subject areas will be individually considered and will usually be interviewed prior to being offered a place on the course.
Relevant work experience and/or a professional development qualification will also be considered.

The criteria for entry are:

English as a Foreign Language: this course requires IELTS of 6.5 overall (for EU and International students).

This course can be studied 100% online with both full-time and part-time options. The full-time route takes one year to complete, or part-time two years.