Geography

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Geography explores the social and physical processes that shape the world around us over space and time.  Geographical issues are always at the forefront of contemporary social and political life: just think of debates over international migration, reports about the effects of climate change on developing countries, and the spread and impact of the global economic crisis, for instance.

Geography is one of the most stimulating and versatile academic subjects you can study at undergraduate level.  Geography at the OU will answer many of your most searching questions about how our complex world is changing.  You’ll understand how global processes influence places in a variety of ways across the world, how social and environmental change intersect, and how places develop a distinctive character and become meaningful to people.

The Geography Department is rated as one of the leading geography departments in the UK by the Research Assessment Exercise.  OU Geographers are interested in key processes of global change, including globalisation, migration, development, urbanisation, environmental change, geopolitics, financial investment and cultural identities.  

We explore many of the issues that are dealt with in the social sciences, but we pay particular attention to where events and processes happen, and to how they affect people and landscapes in different places.  To do this, we combine theoretical frameworks and empirical evidence to make sense of these processes and change.  For example, the UK government is encouraging large firms to implement carbon reduction initiatives in order to meet national targets, and some of the savings are quite impressive.  However, some of these reductions have only been achieved by shifting manufacturing to other countries, like India and China, where emissions are rising.  By looking at the ‘ecological footprint’ of the production of goods around the world, a geographical analysis can bring important insights to issues like these.  

For more information on the Geography at the OU, please visit the Geography Department's website.