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Sustainable Digital Life, Sustainable Societies and Digitalisation

Tampere University

Creating a Digital Future for All

Sustainable Digital Life studies aim to make the digital life more sustainable and accessible for all by cherishing diversity and combining critical thinking with a creative mindset.

Type

Master's degree (University)

Degree earned

Master of Social Sciences

Planned duration

2 years

Extent of studies

120 ETCS

City

Tampere

Form of learning

Full-time studies

Tuition fee for non-EU/EEA citizens

12000 € per academic year

Link to scholarship programme

The modern world is permeated and shaped by digital technologies in all areas of life: communication, learning, playing, creativity, dating, therapy – you name it. 

The Master's Programme in Sustainable Societies and Digitalisation, specialisation in Sustainable Digital Life (SDL) focuses on enhancing our digital lives: the digital systems surrounding us as well as the ways of using, regulating, and designing them. Studies offer a unique course portfolio at the intersection of social sciences, design, and media. The programme educates interdisciplinary experts who understand the digital society from the viewpoints of culture and ethics, as well as comprehend digital systems and how they are produced.

Master’s Programme in Sustainable Societies and Digitalisation focuses on awareness of the diversity of digital cultures. After completing the Master’s Programme students understand the role of digital media and communication technology in today’s and future society and recognizes its ethical and societal risks. The programme consists of the following academically independent specialisations with distinct study profiles: 

  • Accessibility and Diversity in Digital Services (ADDS) 
  • Sustainable Digital Life (SDL) 
  • Artificial Intelligence for Sustainable Societies (AISS) (Erasmus Mundus Joint Master’s Programme) 

Speciality of this degree programme

The programme is strongly project-based: the students carry out realistic research and design projects throughout their studies and connect the theoretical and methodological knowledge to these projects. Please find out about the projects by visiting Project Blogs page.

MOOC Course

Discover the themes of the programme beforehand by joining and completing a MOOC course on Sustainable Digital Life!

Having completed the MOOC course “Introduction to Sustainable Digital Life” will be considered as an advantage in the admission process. 

The programme

  • Aims to educate creative, analytical and critical experts in digital media and communication and information technology; experts who are capable of renewing the society by envisioning, designing, and evaluating digital services that are ethically sustainable, accessible for everyone, and mindful of social and cultural diversity.
  • Focuses on sustainability not only related to digital things but also the way of learning: we ensure that future experts possess skills that are adaptive, far-reaching, and transformative in a variety of fields.
  • Has a special focus on accessibility: learning to understand the diversity of users and ways of using digital systems, how to evaluate accessibility of existing systems, and how to take accessibility into account in design.
  • Is genuinely multidisciplinary: the teachers of the programme represent various academic disciplines. 
  • The programme's core courses include digital literacy, fundamentals of service design, sustainable design, diverse digital culture, accessibility and gamification. 

Sustainability in Tampere University

  • We believe that promoting and educating the development of sustainable technology is a necessary approach to achieve the goal of sustainability.
  • As a herald of scholarship, our university recognizes that sustainability is a foundational imperative for various essential systemic entities. 
  • Sustainability highlights the interconnectedness of economic, social and ecological processes. 
  • Sustainable Digital Life especially focuses on the study of the long-term structural change in digital and social systems with the aim of maintaining social cohesion and solidarity while acknowledging the need to reduce environmental and resource consumption to a sustainable level. 
  • There are many entities to which the necessity of sustainability pertains: the nature, societies and cultures, the humankind. We want to cherish the diversity and resilience within all of these. 
  • Considering the modern digital lives, there are various recent developments and trends that need to be addressed in the pursuit of sustainability, such as the increasing carbon footprint of computation, increasing power of internet companies, challenges in regulating technology development, homogenization of the digital culture, people’s sense of losing control of their digital lives, information addiction, increasing loneliness and isolation and radicalization through technology.
  • Considering the modern digital lives, the perspective of the users of technology integrated to their everyday practices call for critical skills as literacies on technology. From sustainability perspective, that is about ecological digital literacy.

Programme’s multidisciplinary approach is owed to esteemed teachers from various fields: human-technology interaction, media education, media culture, audio studies, theatre and drama research, science and technology studies, information studies and information systems.

Meet our staff!

Studying Sustainable Digital Life, join us in creating a digital future for all!

Four people sitting in a classroom at Hervanta campus.

For more information

Please read through the information provided. For further questions regarding the application process, contact our Admissions office at admissions.tau@tuni.fi or for questions regarding the content of the programme, please contact sdl.studies.tau@tuni.fi.