PROGRAM STRUCTURE 2025-2026
The Master in Management of Sustainable Development Goals is completely held in English and taught by a highly qualified faculty, which includes teaching and research staff from LUMSA University and other top universities as well as Research Institutes and International Organizations.The learning process has a practical orientation and takes the form of structured lectures backed up by practical applications through case studies and visiting speakers as well as project works and individual research.
To qualify for the Master degree participants must successfully complete
-
5 pillars (SDGs, Socio-Economic Challenges, Management, Environmental Challenges, Finance),
-
a project work for professional or internship report for students and
-
a thesis.
The program is completed in 12 months divided in two terms. All the pillars are introduced during the two weeks of frontal lessons that take place at the beginning and the end of the master's course.
The first term covers the first (Sustainable Development Goals), second (Socio-Economic Challenges), and third (Environment) pillars with the aim first, of introducing the SDGs and second, of studying the challenges related to society and economy that a Sustainability Manager needs to face and solve, like inequality, corruption, decent work, public policy for inclusive growt,h just to mention few.
The second term is entirely focused on Management of Sustainability (pillar 4) and is intended to emphasize different fields of management, combining quantitative and risk management topics. The term and the entire pillar offer a general overview of the most technical aspects of management practice while stressing the institutional, organizational, and regulatory background of Sustainable Management and providing support for real business case idea development. Moreover,it focuses also on the Financial tools and institutions necessary to reach sustainability (pillar 5). You will learn about Environmental Economics, Green Economy, Energy Economics, Enviromental Law, Topics in Corporate Finance for Green Business, Sustainable Finance and ESG Ratings.
Project-work or internship report allow students to work on real life-sustainable project. Projects work and Internship are short-term assignments to be carried out in close cooperation with a company or any other organization . To find out more info about past internships, please visit this section.
Thesis Project: Students need to prepare a research paper on an advanced SDG-related topic. The project is compulsory for both students and professionals. The project can be realized in collaboration with a sponsor company.
Attendance and program assessment
The MSDG adopts a blended learning approach combining both face-to-face and online teaching. The program includes two compulsory weeks of frontal lessons (or on-campus sessions), each one introducing the term: i.e., the first will take place at the beginning (February/March 2026), and the second at a later stage of the teaching program (September 2026.
Frontal lessons will take place at LUMSA Venues in Rome, Italy. The frontal lessons introduce the pillars.
E-learning mode: the rest of the classes will be run in an e-learning mode, consisting of e-lessons and an interactive e-lab.
Team Work: students will be divided in thematic groups that will work of specific project for each pillar.
Attendance:Regular attendance (frontal+e-learning) is needed to complete the program successfully. Students are required to attend at least 80% of frontal lessons, to complete all the e-learning modules and are expected to be fully involved in all activities the program offers.
Assessment:Each pillar is assessed on the basis of an individual test, a Team project. In some pillars, during the frontal week, class participation and oral report presentations might be graded.
Credit points
The total number of credits to be obtained is 60: 54 (classes + e-lab) + 3 (internship-based final project or internship report) + 3 (thesis).
The final vote will take into account all the individual pillar tests, the e-lab teamworks, the individual project-work or internship report and the thesis.