Marine Science University of Galway

Overview

The  Marine Science programme at University of Galway  is a four-year degree leading to a BSc (Hons). At the end of the degree, you will have improved your knowledge about the marine environment and will have developed your thinking and practical and personal skills, enabling you to undergo further academic training in a wide variety of scientific disciplines or begin your career. Marine Science is a broad area and the programme aims to help you find what speciality you prefer to study by introducing the subject in a general way at first and allowing you to follow your particular interests later on.

At present, University of Galway is the only Irish university offering this degree programme and it now has the highest concentration of marine scientists of any institution in Ireland. Research ranges from fundamental understanding of the marine ecosystem to very applied activities involving close co-operation with industry and state agencies. The 3,000 square metre Martin Ryan Marine Science Institute houses most of the teaching and research activity in Marine Sciences at the university. MRI Carna carries out applied research in Carna, County Galway.

Career Opportunities

The oceans are fascinating and full of things to discover, and it has always been good advice to study something you are interested in. At the same time, we are in the middle of what has been called a ‘blue acceleration’. This is a rapid expansion across the world in marine-related sectors like marine protected areas, offshore renewables, aquaculture, and shipping. All these sectors need marine scientists working in non-governmental organizations, government agencies and private companies. The types of jobs may include data collection in the field, data analysis, laboratory analyses, report writing, fund-raising, education, or policy advice. There are well over 100 small companies in the Irish marine sector, most of which you will not have heard of due to their size, but some of these companies will expand as the blue acceleration proceeds. There will also be a continual need for marine scientists at the Marine Institute and in other government agencies and departments.

We have graduates working in marine-related roles in the Irish public and private sector. Our graduates have also gone on to study and work overseas. A final thing to remember: Although you will always have studied marine science, the skills from a degree are transferrable, allowing access to many different types of graduate careers.