Online Postgraduate Certificate / Diploma and M.Sc. in Managing Risk and System Change

• Course Director:
  • Prof. Siobhán Corrigan
• Contact Details:
  • Email: managingrisk@tcd.ie
• International Student Course Queries:
  • Erin Paullin (Global Officer, School of Psychology)
  • Telephone: +353-1-896-1015
  • Email: Erin.Paullin@tcd.ie
• Course Duration
  • Postgraduate Certificate (1 year part time) / Postgraduate Diploma (1/2 years part time) / M.Sc. (2/3 years part-time)
• Closing date for Applications:
  • 31st July 2026
• Next Intake:
  • September 2026
• ECTS Credits:
  • M.Sc. (90) / P.Grad. Dip (60) / P.Grad. Cert (30)

Why this programme? — Practical, Credible, Career-first

• Built for people who already work in safety-critical or heavily regulated environments (healthcare, aviation, finance, defence, IT, emergency services, pharma, policing, emergency services and more). 

• Taught by a top-class, research-active team and informed by industry-led collaborative research — you learn frameworks that have been tested in real organisations. 

• Fully online with live evening sessions and all lectures recorded — study around shifts, not the other way round.

Study Mode: Fully online — weekly evening lectures + recorded materials and active online community.

Which Award Suits You Best:

• Postgraduate Certificate — 4 core modules; ideal if you want a focused, career-relevant qualification without committing to a full master’s. Perfect for immediate workplace impact. 
• Postgraduate Diploma — 7 modules; deeper study including socio-technical design, statistics & action research methods — excellent if you want stronger evidence-based skills for organisational change.
• M.Sc. — Full taught programme plus research dissertation: develop research-practitioner capability and contribute original, workplace-relevant research. Option to top-up from the PgDip within five years.

What You Will Learn:

• Lead and manage complex change programs with safety and human factors at the centre.

• Design resilient socio-technical systems that reduce failure and improve performance.

• Use real data, statistics and action-research methods to ask better operational questions and produce actionable results. 

• Translate workplace experience into publishable, practice-driven research (M.Sc. dissertation)

Assessment:

No traditional sit-down exams — assessment is continuous and workplace-embedded: case reports, mini-projects, reflective essays, online dossiers and collaborative learning. Great if you’re juggling work and study.

Online Information Evening:

Join our online information evening on Thursday, March 19th 2026, at 6pm to meet staff, see Blackboard, review the timetable and ask about assessments and fees.

Typical Online Information Evening Structure

• Course Structure
• Student Learning Software Demonstration (Backboard)
• Is This Course For You
• Timetable
• Assessments
• Entry Requirements
• Tuition Costs

Register Your Place Now

For Further information on the different courses please see the following below:

Postgraduate Certificate - https://www.tcd.ie/cihs/courses/postgraduate/postgraduate-certificate/ 

Postgraduate Diploma - https://www.tcd.ie/cihs/courses/postgraduate/postgraduate-diploma/ 

M.Sc. - https://www.tcd.ie/cihs/courses/postgraduate/masters-in-science/