Faculty of Management

Master's in Urban Management

Urban Management is a discipline that is focused on addressing the challenges and realising the opportunities of urban living. It blends specialized knowledge of urban settlements with the principles and practices of management. Urban managers understand how cities and towns function, and they strive to improve the social, technological, operational and financial functioning of urban areas with the aim of improving liveability.

The Master’s in Urban Management (MUM) program aspires to create a pool of high-quality professionals with the knowledge and skills to lead organizations which manage human habitats. The program focuses on management of urban systems and services and their improvement. Students are exposed to the principles and tools of management that are applied to both private and public built spaces. Through this program, students develop skills to address complex problems like enhancing long term efficiency of urban services, improving day-to-day functioning of cities and finding ways to improve financing of urban systems.

The curriculum is designed to:

- Provide a broad perspective on urban issues
- Develop analytical skills needed to navigate complex problems
- Improve evidence-based decision making using management principles

The two-year course work exposes students to multidisciplinary training both through theory and practice-based learning. To enhance professional capacities, the program is centred on studio-based learning. Here, students engage with well-designed life-like problems. In the first year, the foundation studio develops the skill of focusing on management issues of a contained built environment. Semester two intends to develop skills of problem solving for managing large scale urban areas like neighborhoods, towns, and cities. Semester three focuses on service improvement through a studio on Service Operations and Management. In the fourth semester, students undertake a Directed Research Project (DRP) which is either research-based thesis or a project guided and mentored by a faculty.

The learning pedagogy which involves case-based teaching, live projects and interactive sessions with professionals to enhance student capabilities and exposure. The coursework provides option of learning a wide variety of subjects like management principles, human resource management, organizational behaviour, financial management, budgeting, ethics and government, e-governance, business skills, urban utilities, entrepreneurship development, business models, public-private partnership, contract management, project management, negotiation and conflict management, smart cities, and others. Students can take up study-tours and courses organized as part of the Summer-Winter School programs and other electives offered at CEPT University. Students are taught by a pool of trained academicians and practitioners. Both work in collaboration to provide theory and practice-based learning exposure during the course-work.

The MUM program opens up career avenues for young professionals to upgrade their capacities and credentials for a developing field. They would have employment opportunity with a wide variety of organizations working in the development and urban sector. These include local governments, international development agencies, management companies, infrastructure development and project management companies, real estate and asset management consultancies, non-government, and community organizations.