The Interfaculty Graduate Environmental Sciences Program is a multidisciplinary field of study which leads to the Master of Sciences degree in Environmental Sciences with four possible majors namely, Environmental Technology, Ecosystem Management, Environmental Health, and Environmental Policy Planning. Together, these majors ensure adequate coverage of all
environmental and sustainable development issues prevailing in Lebanon and the
Arab World, in their various ecological, economic and social dimensions.
The program has been designed to cater for the rising demand for environmental scientists in the Middle East region. The specificity of the region's environment is reflected both in the program's academic and educational perspectives.
Founded in the mid-1990s, IGESP, recognizing Lebanon's unique diversity – environmental, societal, and cultural – also understands that a diversity of environmental problems affect the integrity of the country's ecosystems. Accordingly, IGESP adopts a holistic approach to resolving those problems, and offers a course of study designed to address both the most salient environmental issues, as well as more specialized topics.
While the program caters mostly to physical and natural sciences students, it is offered to students holding a Bachelor's degree in any approved discipline of engineering or science. It provides graduates with the necessary tools to assess diversified and multidisciplinary environmental issues. The program focuses on enhancing students' research, analytical, problem-solving, and critical-thinking skills by emphasizing the case study approach to learn and solve environmental problems.
Like all programmes at the American University of Beirut, IGESP is registered in the US through the New York State Education Department. The program was evaluated using the criteria of interdisciplinarity, local relevance and competence-based learning, as well as an assessment for the need for such an interdisciplinary approach in environmental education was done in July 2014.
The Interfaculty Graduate Environmental Sciences Program aims to building up the environmental capacity in Lebanon and the region through human resources development as well as research and community involvement. The essence of the program lies in its interdisciplinarity. The program is firmly based on a holistic view of the environment that integrates the ecological, technical, health and socio-economic dimensions. We aim to train creative, flexible and cross-curricular graduates capable of appreciating, building on, and applying cutting-edge knowledge for the management of the Environment. Our graduates are empowered with exceptional technical, managerial, critical evaluation, research and reporting skills.