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, holistic 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. We exist to help our students become real change-makers and work out how to act meaningfully to help resolve the pressing issues we all face today.
Schumacher College and its founder Satish Kumar are also proud recipients of the 2023 RSA Bicentenary Medal for outstanding contribution to ecological education.
ABOUT US: 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
COURSE UNDER REVIEW
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
COURSE UNDER REVIEW
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
COURSE UNDER REVIEW
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.
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
Fuelling the “can do” possibilities from within local communities
The Local Entrepreneur Forum helps build stronger communities making them more resilient in times of economic challenge.
Satish Kumar and Schumacher College win prestigious medal
The RSA honours the work of the college and its founder for their progressive approach to new economic and ecological education.
Clearing 2023
Throughout the summer, we will be fast-tracking applications for our BSc Regenerative Food and Farming at Schumacher College.
watch: Soil To Supper – Sustainability at Schumacher
watch: our students in their own words
follow us
We're delighted to welcome a private learning visit with attendees from Japan this week. This bespoke #schumacherexperience involves participating in lectures, gardening, cooking, wood carving, gong meditation, a deep time walk with Stephan Harding and time with Satish, pictured. If you're interested in bringing a group to learn about our unique pedagogy here at Schumacher, drop us a line on shortcourses@dartington.org
Honoured and delighted that, along with Satish, we have been awarded the prestigious RSA Bicentenary Medal in recognition of our contribution to new economic and ecological learning. See link in bio for the full story.
🍃 Join us on Saturday 2 September as we celebrate Small Is Beautiful and EF Schumacher's proportionate approach to economics. 🍃 What did it mean 50 years ago when he published this influential book? What does it mean for us and the environment today? How can we adapt and reimagine his ethos for a sustainable, even regenerative future?
🍃 We're bringing together some leading thinkers and doers in the field of alternative and regenerative economics including Helena Norberg-Hodge, Ruth Potts, Jonathan Dawson, Jay Tompt, Sebastian Berger, Frances Northrop and Satish Kumar and more! You can book online now to be part of the conversation, joining us at the College for a full day, with lunch included.
#regenerative #economics #smallisbeautiful #alternative #ecoactivism #environment #ecological #ecology
Insightful interview with writer, artist and technologist James Bridle on the latest episode of the Arts & Ecology podcast. James is the author of 'New Dark Age' (2018) and 'Ways of Being' (2022) and their work can be found at http://jamesbridle.com.
Listen to the podcast here: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/arts-ecology/id1632823460