Postgraduate Studentships - Search for funding opportunities.
Postgraduate Studentships - Search for funding opportunities.
Study Details: MA 1 year 3 months full-time
MA Design for Social Innovation and Sustainable Futures has been established as a collaborative, creative and generative studio for designers interested in working with complex global issues.
The course explores the future of design practice and its interdependence with eco-social concerns. Whether you are a graphic designer, systems designer, animator, filmmaker or architect, no matter your educational or professional background, you are invited to investigate and question your discipline in relation to the global systems you inhabit. Looking at the environment, materiality, empathy, ethics and justice within broad and dynamic socio-cultural, economic and political contexts, this is both a practical and thoughtful course with an emphasis on innovative practice, collective action, plurality and real-world change.
The MA will culminate in a final ‘Design in Action’, creating demonstrable eco-social impact.
What can you expect?
You will work fast. You will work slow. You will think deeply. You will make quickly. You might fail periodically. You might play intensely. You should learn continuously. You will learn with and from your peers. You will cultivate your distinct voice and creative confidence. You will critique, deconstruct and re-define the innovation and sustainability canon. You will design for justice.
You will delve deeply into research methodologies, prototyping and experimentation, diverse models of sustainable eco-social practice, systems design and speculative futures.
Through various forms of collaboration inside and outside the University, you will learn to connect with stakeholders, frame your inquiry and re-imagine the present for more sustainable futures. You will be exposed to different theories in social innovation and sustainable practice. You will be invited to critique these and build your own knowledge.
You’ll be given opportunities to participate in a diverse range of experiences including workshops, presentations, exhibitions, symposia, knowledge exchange and skills sharing. The course has been designed to be designed. All students involved will be shape-shifting this course through their own critical and practical work.
The Design School at London College of Communication believes in ‘design as the site of action and agency to radically transform our world’. This course will be putting thinking into practice, giving you the chance to make real eco-social impact through a Design in Action final project.
The MA Design for Social Innovation and Sustainable Futures course welcomes applicants who are keen to 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.
Applicants may come from a range of design disciplines or related creative industry experiences with a 2:1 or above Honours degree course, or have other equivalent qualifications.
The course team also welcomes students with relevant technical/ practical background experience who have worked in creative industries and who show a commitment to design and experiential learning, being keen to explore their practice as a place of sustainable action and social transformation.
The teaching team is looking for applicants who value critical thinking and socially and environmentally focused design, and are looking to question the relationship of design industry and the global systems it inhabits.
Educational level may be demonstrated by:
For fees and funding information, please see website
Demand in the public, private and third sectors for professionals with this knowledge-set and experience means that career options are diverse. Therefore, graduates might join/work with:
By combining strong practice-based learning and strategic thinking with an innovative and enterprising mind-set, students will also have the knowledge, confidence and competitive edge to:
Researching and framing for innovation (20 credits)
Understand the range of different design research methods and apply these to a real-world enquiry. Explore the ethics of research practice, the complexity of the global issues within our different personal and cultural contexts, and the importance of getting the question right.
Eco-Social innovation and impact (40 credits)
Explore an expansive range of theories, models, and literature around the subject of social innovation and sustainability. Dive into examples of practice and take a critical look at the past, present and future.
Collaborative unit (20 credits)
A chance to do a real project with other people across the university and beyond. Put your knowledge, thinking, and ideas into practice.
Co-design for sustainable futures (40 credits)
Speculate, imagine, and make more plural, collaborative and sustainable futures.
Design in action: major project (60 credits)
A chance for you start your own piece of work in direct reaction to a situation or issue in the world that you want to change.
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