Main orientations and specific features | Career opportunities | Programmes

 As of January 2013, PSIA is pleased to announce the one-year PSIA MDP for Experienced Development Practitioners.

Achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) underscores the need for a cadre of generalist professionals trained across the fields of global health, economics, governance, and environmental sciences. 

The ability to work in global networks and local teams across many professions and cultures is essential, since the skills and knowledge required for success range far beyond a single discipline or profession.

-Jeffrey Sachs, World-Renowned Economist

Directed towards professionals with substantial work experience (at least three years’ of full-time, non-internship, work), the program endows students with the substantive knowledge required to analyze and address cross-sector challenges to development, such as malnutrition, absolute poverty, energy regulation, climate change and infectious disease control.

General Objectives

The Master in Development Practice (MDP) has been described as “the development practitioner’s executive MBA,” according to the International Commission of Education for Sustainable Development Practice, providing a top-notch academic experience during the course of one year.  Integrating the core disciplines of health sciences, natural sciences and social sciences, the Master in Development Practice (MDP) is an innovative, cross-disciplinary graduate degree program supported by a grant from the MacArthur Foundation.

The PSIA MDP one-year program is structured according to the guidelines formulated by the International Commission on Education for Sustainable Development Practice, while at the same time, offers the dynamic pedagogical process that is the hallmark of the Paris School of International Affairs (PSIA), enabling students to customize their curriculum, reflecting their own specific learning and professional objectives related to development practice. PSIA MDP students have access to over 150 courses per year.

While at PSIA, all students acquire interdisciplinary knowledge and practical skills and work in cross-cultural teams transnationally within their diverse cohort and through the MDP Global Network. The program’s intersectoral approach enables graduates to work across various sectors to design and manage integrated development interventions, and to implement appropriate policies to support sustainable development. Students have the opportunity to participate in a collaborative seminar with the French Development Agency or to attend an international development forum as part of a professional simulation.

Scientific Advisor

Laurence Tubiana is the Scientific Advisor of the PSIA Master Development Practice.  She is also the founder and director of the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations (IDDRI) in Paris. Laurence Tubiana follows and participates in the international negotiations on climate change, in which IDDRI is highly involved. She is also professor and director of the Sustainable Development Center at Sciences Po Paris, and recently set up the new direction of Global Publics Goods of the French Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs. Laurence Tubiana is member of several scientific boards of main research institutions such as the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (CIRAD), the India Council for Sustainable Development and the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development. From 1997 to 2002, she served as senior advisor to the Prime Minister, Lionel Jospin, on environmental issues and conducted a number of international negotiations on this subject.

Main orientations and specific features

Rethinking and retooling development practices is the aim of our selective MDP program, which is devoted to those who have been engaged in the field and are willing to revisit their own professional experience with a cutting-edge education.  - Ghassan Salamé, Dean of PSIA

PSIA MDP students, on average, have 3 to 7 years of professional experience before entering the one-year program (in development or in another field).  More junior candidates are invited to apply for our two-year Master of International Development. 

MDP students include sector-based practitioners, policy administrators, private-sector professionals, and educators, with the shared objective of broadening their knowledge base to understand complex interactions between sectors of development practice.

MDP students participate in the Global MDP Network of 24 universities around the world, engage with guest lecturers from various development organizations through the PSIA’s speaker series, and interact with other MDP students through collaborative virtual learning in the Global Classroom course. The one-year MDP includes a one-week Bootcamp in August, two full semesters, a short course in January, and two months of academic work in the summer.  At the end of the one-year academic component, students return to full-time work or pursue a newly-acquired area of expertise should they be in exploring another sector of sustainable development practice.  The PSIA one-year MDP program is more adapted to mature professionals.

Acquiring interdisciplinary knowledge and practical skills enables graduates to work across various sectors to design and manage integrated development interventions and to implement appropriate policies and draw from specialist expertise to support sustainable development.

One of the great assets of PSIA’s MDP program is the exceptional quality of its students.  They bring a wealth of knowledge that reflects the strength of their diversity not only in culture and origins but in real-life development experiences.  It is always more than a pleasure to interact with them.

-          Charles Oman, PSIA MDP Faculty and Former Director of Research, OECD Development Center

Please visit the MDP Global Association, which includes all programs offering a Master's in Development Practice (MDP), situated at universities around the world, and a broad range of MDP collaborating organizations.

Spring 2013: Launch of the MDP Collaborative Seminar with the Agence Française de Développement

“Case studies are educational tools that engage readers in active learning by putting them in the shoes of real people wrestling with real dilemmas.  Cases are used to illustrate a particular set of learning objectives, and (as in real life) rarely are there exact answers to the dilemma at hand.  Case studies provide readers with an overview of the issue, background on the setting, the people involved, and the events that led to the problem or decision at hand.”  - Harvard Law School

This collaborative seminar with the Agence Française de Développement (AFD)on case study methodology will bring together first year and second year MDP students to work in groups to design four project management case studies relating to international development, working alongside project managers from the AFD. Throughout the course, students will be exposed to various project management tools: logical framework approach; cost-benefit analysis; social and environmental impact assessment, among others. Upon completion of the course, MDP students will be able to design a case study; demonstrate knowledge in case selection, case analysis and quality criteria; and be able to discuss and explain some principles for drawing conclusions from case studies.

The seminar will spread over six sessions of four hours each. The dates of these sessions are the following: February 6th and 20^th, March 20^th and 27^th, April 17^th and May 2^nd. Students will be divided into groups of four. Drawing from AFD development projects, students will design and write, in English, one case study per group.

Career opportunities

The one-year MDP Program at PSIA is designed to provide the necessary knowledge and skills for development practitioners, policy professionals at the local and national level, private sector professionals, and high-level project managers. The one-year PSIA MDP program is directed towards young professionals with previous substantial work experience who want to acquire new competences and skills and to become  part of a new generation of generalist practitioners prepared to confront complex sustainable development challenges and able to innovate, to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

Photo by Ana Maria Martinez, PSIA MDP Student, while on Field Training in Nepal

Programs 2012-2013

• One-year MDP Curriculum
• Class of 2013 and 2014 Curriculum Presentation
• Fall courses - 2012-2013 | Download Planning
• Spring courses - 2011-2012
• Download Planning

Tuition Fees and MDP Scholarship Opportunities

Tuition fees for the MDP are 19,000 euros, for the entire one-year course of study (including the one-week August bootcamp, two full academic semesters, a January intersession, and the summer session).  The same fees apply for both EU and non-EU residents.

On a competitive basis, a limited number of scholarships are awarded each year to MDP (Master in Development Practice) candidates (who are not eligible for the Emile Boutmy scholarship). These scholarships are awarded on the basis of need as well as merit. They range from partial to full tuition remission, and are valid for study at Sciences Po upon sufficient academic performance (top 50% of class). They do not cover living expenses, books, or field training.

Other MDP funding opportunities include the AFD scholarshipand the Joint Japan/World Bank scholarship.

Student News

News from the field- May-December 2012 -  PSIA MDP Student Ana Maria Martinez blogs from Nepal about her field experience with Empower Generation, a social enterprise that invests in women-led renewable energy businesses. (Photos courtesy of Ana Maria Martinez).

"After working for more than 5 years in International Logistics, I decided to quit my job in Colombia to follow my professional dreams in development practices.  At the MDP in Sciences Po, Paris, I have confirmed my passion for development and willingness to work on this subject the rest of my life.  My internship in Nepal has been the perfect complement to the masters because I have been able to share with people from the rural communities of the country and contribute to their life-quality improvement. A smile from the people impacted has been my biggest remuneration for the work we have done in this country." - Ana Maria Martinez, 2011-2013 Cohort.

March 2012 - PSIA MDP students attended the 6th World Water Forum in Marseille as part of a professional development exercise.  In the first day alone, they participated in a number of attention-grabbing conferences and interviewed - for example - the OECD Secretary General,the CEO of the Global Environment Facility (GEF), and the UN special rapporteur on the right to water.

The 6th World Water Forum “Time for Solutions” is the largest water event in the world, held every three years. The week-long event is estimated to welcome 25.000 people from 180 countries to Marseille in the South of France. The forum participants will exchange on local and global challenges of water, from access to drinking water, and sanitation for all, to the water footprint of agriculture and climate change.

The students' aim is to share the topics discussed in the conference and their impressions of the conference with the Sciences Po, MDP and the wider development community through short articles, interviews, videos and photos on their blog mdpsciencespo.wordpress.com, where they concentrate on a variety of topics regarding the intersection between water and development including the links between water and energy, urbanization, health and food security. 

Contacts

Scientific Advisor: Laurence Tubiana

Academic Advisor: Michelle Reddy
Office hours by appointment: Monday 10h/13h Thursday 10h/13h Friday 14h/17h

Academic Assistant:  Ioannis Papadimitriou 
Secretariat open Monday/Tuesday/Thursday 9h30-12h45 14h15-16h45. Wednesday/Friday 9h30-12h45