The course has an applied focus. Students undertake a project which is expected to bring together their practical skills with the substantive issues covered earlier in the programme. If students opt to write the longer dissertation, supervision is offered during the term. A wide range of teaching methods are employed to vary the learning experience. These include lectures and seminars, workshops, work with computers, intensive project-work in small groups, and use of videos.
Supervision is provided through group tutorials and individually.
The course is taught jointly by the IDS and University of Sussex faculty members as well as outside resource persons with specialist expertise. The course resource persons have extensive experience in teaching, research, consultancy, and operational work, and represent a range of social science disciplines. Each module is examined by written papers. Students also write a dissertation in the final term. If they take the 'Doing Development' module the final dissertation is 10,000 words.