University College London

This course develops students' understanding of contentious politics in international relations and comparative politics by looking at how conflict spreads. A range of advanced topics are covered, with a primary focus on how diffusion and spatial dynamics affect the empirical study of international war, democracy, autocracy, and civil war. This course goes beyond traditional theories of international relations by offering a network perspective on contentious politics. In addition, this course asks students to develop theory and use statistical software to plot networks, predicting dynamics of diffusion, and designing informed policy decisions based on those insights.

This course introduces students to the study of foreign policy. As a sub-field of International Relations, Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) concentrates on decision making and how international, domestic, and individual pressures shape the actions states take. The course focuses on explaining and understanding the process of foreign policy decision making, the foreign policy instruments available to policy makers, and the differing strategies that states employ in achieving their aims. Students learn about major concepts and theoretical approaches that help explain why and how states and foreign policy makers behave the way that they do.

This course introduces students to the transformative and innovative field of advanced materials and nanomaterials, focusing on their applications in the electronics, energy, and healthcare sectors. Students are introduced to state-of-the-art material characterization techniques, such as advanced microscopy and profilometer, to analyze properties at the nanoscale. The course explores surface and particle nanoengineering, contrasting bottom-up and top-down fabrication methods, including cutting-edge advanced manufacturing techniques like 3D printing and precision machining. Highlighting successful nanotechnology applications, such as flexible electronics and energy storage devices, the module also introduces Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to evaluate the environmental impacts of materials and manufacturing processes. Through the hands-on mini-projects, students apply knowledge to real-world challenges, gaining practical skills in sustainable material design and advanced manufacturing. This comprehensive course equips students with the expertise to innovate and address complex issues in materials science and manufacturing, sparking their curiosity and excitement for the field.

This course interrogates the history, research potential, ethical considerations, and institutional practices associated with museum collections of world archaeology. The course equips students with the skills to engage critically with and conduct research on archaeology collections, provide a basic understanding of best practice in managing archaeological collections and give an insight into the museum as an institution. This course introduces students to the history, theory, and practice of managing and researching archaeological collections in museums. It provides a critical framework for approaching legacy collections from previous generations of fieldwork, as well as future acquisitions from ongoing fieldwork, practical experience of conducting object-based research in a museum context and direct insight into how museums function. Through case-studies, museum site visits, and hands-on practicals the course seeks to develop students' understanding of museum archaeology as reflexive practice.

Quantitative finance remains one of the fastest growing areas in modern finance. Alternative names are financial engineering, mathematical finance, or financial mathematics. This is an application-based course on the mathematical and computational aspects of derivative pricing. It lies at the heart of mathematics, computing, finance, and economics. Both theory and numerical techniques are presented, with computer simulations performed on MS Excel. If you are interested in technical finance and have wondered what Brownian Motion is, or how Monte Carlo methods are used to price options; then this module is precisely what you are looking for – covering Itô Calculus, Black-Scholes world and Monte Carlo simulations. This is not a theorem-proof based course, but all results are derived.

This course is for students who are planning to work in international teams or are considering an international career. It provides students with background knowledge of different cultural models and approaches that impact people’s behavior in a professional setting. The course raises students’ awareness of potential areas of cultural differences and the ways how to improve their intercultural communication ability. It considers a range of professional skills and situations from intercultural perspectives in order to prepare students for confident communication in their work or study-related settings. 

This course provides an introduction to the basic mathematical aspects and associated data analysis of statistical design and survey sampling, and also to data ethics as a set of principles to guide the design of appropriate data use in academia and the public sector. 

This course explores the relationships between science, war, and the prevention of war. It places military and security technologies within social, political, and historical contexts. The course emphasizes 20th and 21st centuries and weapons usually designated as "unconventional" or "weapons of mass destruction." In addition to thinking about how science, technology, and warfare have shaped each other, the course considers the changing role of the scientist in relation to the state. It also considers broader themes, such as arms control, disarmament, ethics, and popular culture in relation to war.

Through laboratory work, the course introduces students to the chemistry and physical properties of minerals; morphological elements of crystallography; the optical properties of minerals, introduced in conjunction with use of the petrographic microscope; the physical, chemical, and optical properties of the major rock-forming mineral groups; and the intrusive and extrusive igneous rocks and clastic and chemical sedimentary rocks.

This is a largely practical course, which develops experimental skills. A selection of practicals and follow-up sessions designed for students taking Pharmacology PHAR0004 provide reinforcement of the material in that course. Students learn to conduct simple experiments on in vitro preparations and present their findings in a written account, use animals in medical research from the standpoint of animal welfare and ethics; set-up tissue preparations and use transducers and computers to measure tension or length changes in smooth muscle preparations; understand the experimental conditions required to maintain tissues in vitro and of the requirements to achieve stimulation of nerves using pulse generators; perform dilutions of stock drug solutions and calculate appropriate volumes to add to organ baths to achieve the desired final concentrations; follow experimental protocols accurately to generate reproducible results; and quantify results and present them clearly in graphical form.