Geographical Information Systems (GIS) MSc programmes: Research areas

The GIS team are active researchers, having delivered numerous papers, books and conference presentations to national and international audiences (read more in the Who teaches this course? section). This ensures that they are in touch with the latest thinking and bring best practice to your studies. They are editors of major international journals, supervise postgraduate MPhil and PhD students and are active participants in the GI industry in a range of areas.

They also have a good track record of securing research funding and delivering consultancy courses/GIS training on a European level. Recent major research grants have been awarded from UK Research Councils to GIS staff for a range of projects.

Centre for Earth and Environmental Science Research

GIS staff are members of the School of Earth Sciences and Geography's Centre for Earth and Environmental Science Research (CEESR). Research falls into three different groups:

• Geodynamics and Crustal Processes Research Group (GCPRG) – including tectonics, basin evolution and applications of palaeomagnetism to global geodynamics;
• Environmental Change Research Group (ECRG) – including remote sensing of land cover change in tropical and temperate ecosystems and human impacts on watercourses and soils in Britain; and
• Rural Geography and Social Change Research Group (RSCRG) – including rural communities, change in the British countryside and urban socio-economic issues.

The GCPRG was one of only three UK Earth Sciences groups designated a 'flagged group' in the 2001 Research Assessment Exercise. This indicates that it is a grade five-rated research group of 'international quality'.

Student research

You may be able to publish any research you undertake on the Kingston University Research and Innovation Reports (KURIR) website. This site gives anyone associated with Kingston University the opportunity to publish articles, which will be permanently available to the academic community.

MSc students are also encouraged to publish their final research projects if they are sufficiently good enough. For instance, Howard Macey (2005, MSc with distinction) worked with Dr Ken Field to prepare his research into a presentation given at the 2007 ESRI International User Conference in San Diego, California. Howard's research was on the use of GIS for analysing recycling behaviour and his paper was extremely well received by a large audience. Read Howard's paper.

Armen Asryan (2005, MSc with distinction) is also building upon the excellent research he did in his MSc by going on to study for a PhD with us at Kingston with Dr Mike Smith and Dr Ken Field.