MA Design for Social Innovation and Sustainable Futures

Course summary:

MA Design for Social Innovation and Sustainable Futures is aimed at enthusiastic and agile designers who want to concentrate their practice on working strategically and creatively as agents of positive change.

Great reasons to apply:

• Purpose driven - Apply design thinking to real-world challenges; engage with and empower diverse societal voices; undertake sustainable 'design in action'.
• Systemic approach - Acquire skill-sets to interrogate the interrelated dynamics of design practice within the world; imagine models geared towards paradigm shift and innovation.
• Communication-centric - Use communication design as a tool to explore, engage, manage and enterprise for societal and ecological transformation.
• Co-creative and transdisciplinary - Co-design with stakeholders; learn from multiple disciplines and perspectives; collaborate with peers, organisations and communities.
• Resilient learning - Develop strategic and adaptive skills to deal with uncertainty and complexity that promote advocacy, leadership and employability.

Enthusiastic and agile designers who want to concentrate their practice on working strategically and creatively as agents of positive change.

Course details:

MA Design for Social Innovation and Sustainable Futures course will explore design in terms of its human-centred and strategic approach, its collaborative potential and as a leading force for driving meaningful and contextually relevant societal and ecological transformation. Design is realised via the disciplines of communication, strategy, interaction and innovation; placing systems-thinking at its core. You will be invited to explore and question these disciplines in relation to the global systems they inhabit, looking at the environment, materiality, empathy, ethics and responsibility as they are set within broad and dynamic socio-cultural, economic and political contexts.

What can you expect?

The course design methodologies combine rigorous research approaches with a ‘lean start-up' attitude to exploring, managing, and enterprising. Through collaboration (with peers, industry partners and organisations) and via co-design with stakeholders, you'll learn to connect, frame, reimagine and plan for transformation.

You will be given opportunities to participate in a diverse range of experiences including workshops, presentation, exhibitions, symposia, knowledge exchange and skills sharing. Teaching is led by course teams who draw on expertise in social innovation, sustainable design, design activism and design theory and practice.

The Design School at LCC believes in ‘design as the site of action and agency to radically transform our world.' This postgraduate course is aimed at enthusiastic and agile designers who want to concentrate their practice on working strategically and creatively as agents of positive change.

Who is this course for?

• Enthusiastic and agile designers who want to concentrate their practice on working strategically and creatively as agents of positive change.
• Have a visual communication technical/practical background with commitment to critical thinking, research and ambitious project development.
• Proactive, contextually aware and curious thinkers interested in exploring themes in social innovation and sustainable design.
• Global citizens able to interact effectively within an international student cohort and to engage with project stakeholders or collaborative partners.

Fees & Funding:

• Home / EU fee

University of the Arts London (UAL) is Europe’s largest specialist art and design university. Its unique creative community is made up of six renowned Colleges, each with its own world-class reputation: Camberwell College of Arts, Central Saint Martins, Chelsea College of Arts, London College of Communication, London College of Fashion and Wimbledon College of Arts.

UAL is the world’s sixth best University for Art and Design in the QS World University Rankings 2018. Offering an extensive range of courses in art, design, fashion, communication and performing arts, UAL is the main talent pipeline to the UK’s creative industries.

Home to a diverse community of over 18,000 students from 129 countries, UAL has a track record for launching and furthering careers. Our graduates can be found in every part and at every level of the creative and cultural sectors, from heads of global business to self-employed practitioners, and on shortlists for awards ranging from the Turner Prize to the Oscars.

Building on UAL’s association with some of the most original thinkers in the arts, students and staff are inspired to challenge convention, generate new ideas and nurture talent. Home to award-winning staff and students for more than a century, UAL’s Colleges are at the forefront of learning, creativity and practice in their specialist subjects. This close-knit College structure offers opportunities for learning and enquiry for people at all stages of their creative development.