Schumacher College is a progressive college for ecological studies offering postgraduate and undergraduate programmes, research degrees, short courses and a practical agroecology residency.
We focus on interactive and experiential education to help students develop the practical skills and strategic thinking required to face 21st century challenges and to instigate regenerative futures.
Our learning ethos is about participating, getting out into the field, into the kitchen, experiencing the world as a starting point for more in-depth enquiry. These experiences then inform anti-reductionist, whole systems thinking that can help to break down traditional disciplines and foster collaborations that reach towards a better understanding of the truth.
ABOUT US:Â Read more about our history and ethos >
live chats & open days
Get to know our College, our faculty and our programmes with these online and offline events.
flexible learning
There are so many ways to connect with our learning programmes to suit your lifestyle – including low-residency or part time routes, unaccredited modules, and blended learning models.
postgraduate programmes
Transformative Education
MA | PGDIP | PGCERT
This postgraduate degree opens up our distinctive learning model to train educators, teachers and curriculum designers in the principles of an ecological approach to education.
Regenerative Food, Farming and Enterprise
MSC | PGDIP | PGCERT
This radical new course is designed to help you develop your knowledge and understanding of resilient human-scale food systems and learn the skills needed to design, influence or develop resilient, productive food-based networks and businesses of your own. With an ecological and systemic approach, you will carve out a path towards making a positive contribution to the food economy.
Regenerative Economics
MA | PGDIP | PGCERT
Regenerative Economics challenges and offers alternative perspectives to mainstream economics programmes – by looking through the lens of ecology as if both people and planet mattered equally.
Movement, Mind and Ecology
MA | PGDIP | PGCERT
Explore the rich intersection of embodied practice, environmental philosophy and ecological thinking with this distinctive new course. The first of its kind, the MA programme encourages you to use your own physical engagement with the world to reshape your understanding of place, nature, self and society, with the help of world-renowned experts from a wide range of physical pursuits.
Engaged Ecology
MA | PGDIP | PGCERT
A radical programme for students looking to reconsider their relationship with the more-than-human and find solutions to the environmental and social crises of our time. The course equips you with the skills to engage practically in the field, while also allowing you the time and space to develop a personal understanding of the interconnected nature of the world.
Ecological Design Thinking
MA | PGDIP | PGCERT
Be active and transformative within organisations, communities, economics and education as we meet the challenge of transitioning to low carbon, high well-being and resilient places and systems. Never has there been a more important time for a new approach to design.
undergraduate programmes
Regenerative Food and Farming
BSC (HONS) | DIPHE | CERTHE
The BSc in Regenerative Food and Farming gives you the opportunity to explore leading-edge alternatives to mainstream agricultural practices and food systems, through a programme of integrated experiential learning, study alongside expert faculty and practitioners, meaningful work placement, and guided independent projects.
Short Courses
Our courses celebrate the ethos of learning by doing and nature connection developed here at Schumacher College and across a century of arts learning on the Dartington estate. They unite ecology, craft skills and contemporary art with politics, philosophy and social justice, underpinned by a stronger sense of our place in the world. Our learning experiences are offered alongside short courses from the Dartington Arts School as part of a collaborative learning community.
more from schumacher
Unaccredited modules
If you love our degree programmes but can’t commit to a full course, it’s possible to select modules as unaccredited short courses.Â
Practical Residency In Agroecology
A rich, six month immersive programme learning how to grow food in a way that maintains and restores soil and ecosystem health.
virtually schumacher
– Ongoing series of live chats with course tutors
– Podcasts
– Video archive – including our long-running Earth Talks series
research at dartington
We offer research degrees in partnership with University of Westminster CREAM. Our researchers have expertise in a wide range of topics including arts practice-led research; animism; medieval literature; modernism; story and myth; arts, design and ecology; ecology and spirituality; Goethean science; regenerative economics, farming and food; social work with adults and children; and social enterprise.
latest news & blogs
Convergence with Universidad Austral de Chile
Current student Mark Sim blogs on a recent international meeting of minds combining our Regenerative Economics Master’s with Human-Scale Development and Ecological Economics intiatives in Chile.
What’s in a name? How we came to be called Schumacher College
Schumacher College was named in honour of the legacy of economist E. F. Schumacher, whose work prioritised an economics that also contributed to healthy people and planet. This blog burrows deeper into the story of how the College came to take on Schumacher’s name, with the help of our founder Satish Kumar.
New Entrant Farming Enterprise Programme launched
Accessing land is one of the greatest barriers for people wanting to work in agriculture – so we’ve created a programme that can try and help change that.
watch: Soil To Supper – Sustainability at Schumacher
watch: our students in their own words
follow us
We’re delighted to announce plans for a new postgraduate degree in Transformative Education which we intend to run in September this year, pending final approval from University of Plymouth our accrediting partner. For some time we’ve wanted to open up our distinctive learning model here at Schumacher College to train educators, teachers and curriculum designers in the principles of an ecological, head, heart and hands approach to learning. Now, drawing on the century of progressive education practiced here at Dartington and a range of alternative perspectives, from Scandinavian folk schools to First Nation and Sámi learning communities, we’re inviting you to come and learn this model for yourself. Now is the time for us to work together to create education systems better suited to meet our growing need for nature connection, regeneration of communities and places, and action to mitigate the climate emergency!
If this sounds of interest, we’d love to hear from you, either as a prospective student, or to give your thoughts on the development of the programme. The approval process is due to be finalised later this spring, and while we can’t accept applications until that point, you can register your interest by signing up for updates on our website.
#transformativeeducation #education #dartington #studentlife #lifelonglearning #headhearthands
Apply now to join us in September! If you’re interested in joining our collaborative learning community this autumn and are looking for a bursary to support you through your studies, the first application deadline is this Friday, 24 March. Don't let your chance of getting an offer at Schumacher College pass you by!
This deadline applies to:
- Ecological Design Thinking
- Regenerative Economics
Apply now, link in Bio.
Let us know if you need help with the application process or if you would like to discuss which of our many pathways is best for you. Get in touch at admissions@dartington.org or contact us via our social channels.
#postgrad #postgraduate #highereducation #applynow #deadlines #bursaries #tranformativelearning #regenerative #economics #ecologie
@schumacher_center @riverford @robhopkins5085 @strangefutures_theatre
Spring equinox is here! We often present labyrinth making as a communal experience on such occasions. But this spring (and the weather) invited a more solitary, meditative path, perhaps more poignant for it, and certainly imbued with that deeper sense of change, or the cycles of birth, life, death and return, that each new season reminds us of. All the same, a moment worth marking with gratitude in the learning community calendar here, as the growing season now really takes off in earnest.
📸 Harriet Knight
#equinox #spring #springequinox #dartington #schumachercollege
We have a selection of short courses coming up this summer that look at the intersection between writing and areas including running, dancing and the menopause.
Running & Writing | May 26-28
Join our director of learning, @climate_run, and acclaimed author @adharanand for this brilliant weekend workshop using running as a way to open up creativity.
Step Into Your Power | June 1-4
Back for a second year, this course led by poets @katrinanaomi and @thenaturetable - who is a lecturer on our Engaged Ecology masters programme - takes us into the woods to explore creative responses to the menopause.
Write:Dance | September 22-24
Join @kyra_norman_ and @katrinanaomi for a lively, thoughtful and nourishing weekend of dancing and writing, moving between the body and the page, and taking time to notice and find words for the sensations, images and stories that arise when we are in motion.
For more information and to book your spot, see the links in our bio or head to dartington.org/shortcourses