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MA

Design Innovation

Enhance your creativity and critical thinking with MA Design Innovation. Collaborate on real-world projects, tackling social, environmental, and economic challenges. Use design thinking to drive innovation, transform industries, and create lasting change.

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Key Course Details

  • Start Date

    September

  • Location

    Cardiff

  • Campus Code

    B

Fees

  • Home students

    £10,800*

  • International students

    £16,900*

  • Full-time fees are per year. Part-time fees are per 20 credits.

  • Start Date

    September

  • Location

    Cardiff

  • Campus Code

    B

Fees

  • Home students

    £1,200*

  • Full-time fees are per year. Part-time fees are per 20 credits.

This course empowers you to drive positive change and become a catalyst for innovation, using design as a tool for purposeful action and meaningful activism.

DESIGNED FOR

MA Design Innovation is designed for you, whether you come from creative industries, financial services, public sectors, or are transitioning careers. It enhances your employability by focusing on critical and creative problem-solving, helping you develop key skills to drive change and succeed in your chosen profession.

Career Paths

  • Design Management
  • Innovation Management
  • Strategic Brand Management
  • Design Research
  • Entrepreneur

Skills taught

  • Advanced human-centred research methods
  • Design Thinking for user-centred design
  • Critical Thinking for problem solving
  • Innovation theory in sustainable and responsible governance
  • Advocacy and autonomy in driving change

Staff stood in front of red backdrop in a fashion studio smiling

Course Highlights

Creative Problem-Solving

Discover innovative ways to solve complex social, environmental, and economic challenges using design thinking and systems thinking.

Advanced Research

Use people-centred research methods to understand human needs and how creativity can solve complex issues.

Unique Industry Impact

Stand out by designing new approaches that transform traditional business models, leading to fresh products, services, and strategies. Collaborate on real-world projects to make a lasting impact on industry and society.

Creative Thinking Skills

Develop sought-after creative thinking skills that break boundaries, helping you lead and inspire others in any field.

Module Overview

Our philosophy explores connections between creativity, industry, and society through experimental design research. We focus on global socio-economic challenges such as technology-driven futures, healthy societies, sustainable economies, activism, civic participation, hyperconnectivity, business models, and climate change equity, aiming to drive impactful, interdisciplinary solutions.

Global Contexts and Systems         

Explore motivations and behaviours shaping design and innovation, focusing on economic, social, and environmental ecosystems to develop strategic thinking.

Design-led Innovation principles and methods

Investigate how innovation professionals deliver value using design-led principles to manage innovation in both commercial and values-driven organizations.

Design Thinking Lab                 

Apply the design thinking approach to problem framing, opportunity identification, idea generation, prototyping, and testing. Explore creative ways to communicate future narratives.

Advanced Design Research               

Use advanced, human-centred research methods to inform strategic decisions, including ethnographic techniques to gain user insights and develop narratives.

Creative and Collaborative Professionalism       

Develop professional presence and collaboration skills through presenting innovation proposals to partners and clients in engaging, creative ways.

Innovation Impact Lab           

Examine how design challenges business practices and contributes to sustainable development. Experiment with measuring and managing social, economic, and environmental impacts.

Innovation Lead Project       

A self-directed final project where you apply your creative innovation skills and intrapreneurial mindset to develop, execute, and analyse a live innovation project.

Course Highlights

How you'll learn

The course helps you develop the research and communication skills needed to manage innovation projects and gain stakeholder support. You’ll interact with mentors, guest speakers, and visit industries to inform your design work. Assessments include a mix of individual and group tasks, such as portfolios, podcasts, reflections, blogs, presentations, simulations, and proposals. These assessments encourage you to think about your learning process, not just the results. They are designed to build both your personal and teamwork skills, preparing you for a career as an innovator.

Teaching staff

Our experienced staff at USW are here to help you build critical thinking, analysis, and practical skills. With their guidance, we’ll support you in tackling complex challenges and developing the skills you need. Our goal is to help you gain the confidence to apply these skills and succeed in your career.

Facilities

The Cardiff campus offers a wide range of facilities, including photography studios, animation labs, green screen studios, and a fashion design studio, providing you with the resources to bring your creative ideas to life.


Equipment

At our Cardiff Campus we have a vast range of equipment that you will be trained to use as part of your course. To help support your studies we have a Media Loans facility that allows you to hire the equipment, at no cost, for you to then use for your assignments and practical work.  We have both basic and high-end film and photography cameras, portable lighting and sound equipment as well as a range of professional studio recording microphones, instruments and associated equipment to use in our music studios or on location. The team of technical officers and instructors are also available to help you with any queries and technical issues.

Careers and Employability

Graduate careers

The course offers a variety of career paths for graduates in roles that require enterprising and intrapreneurial skills. You’ll gain hands-on experience in product, service, social, and commercial innovation, including user insight, design thinking, rapid prototyping, and agile delivery. This prepares you for roles in design management, innovation management, brand management, design research, and technology transformation in both social and commercial sectors.

Industry links

Our master’s program connects your final project with innovation challenges in your field. Whether in consulting, retail, healthcare, non-profits, or government, you'll collaborate on real-world challenges, applying innovation and design expertise. This hands-on experience ensures you develop cutting-edge solutions while building industry connections that align with your professional path.

Careers support

At USW, we’re here to support you from day one with launching your career. We’ll assist you in finding internships and placement, while helping you build a standout CV and portfolio. You’ll gain key skills in project management, client interaction, and teamwork, all while learning how to present your ideas confidently. Our careers service is available throughout your course, offering workshops and one-on-one coaching on CVs, interviews, and job applications. We’ll also help you create a strong LinkedIn profile and explore global job opportunities, making sure you're fully prepared for a successful career in your chosen field.

ENTRY REQUIREMENTS

A good Honours degree in a relevant discipline or appropriate professional qualification; or an HND/HNC and relevant experience.

International applications welcomed:

We welcome international applications with equivalent qualifications of our entry requirements. For more details related to your country of residence, please view our dedicated country pages.

English language requirements

International applicants will need to have achieved an overall of IELTS 6.0 with a minimum of 5.5 in each component/TOEFL 72 overall and a minimum of 18 in reading, 17 in listening, 20 in speaking and 17 in writing or equivalent.

Equivalents can be located on our English Language pages.

If you have previously studied through the medium of English, IELTS might not be required, please visit our country specific page for further details. If your country is not featured, please contact us.

If you do not meet the English entry criteria, please visit our Pre-Sessional course pages.

Contextual offers

We may make you a lower offer based on a range of factors, including your background (where you live and the school or college that you attended, for example), your experiences and individual circumstances (as a care leaver, for example). This is referred to as a contextual offer, and we receive data from UCAS to support us in making these decisions.

USW prides itself on its student experience and we support our students to achieve their goals and become a successful graduate. This approach helps us to support students who have the potential to succeed and who may have faced barriers that make it more difficult to access university.

 

We're here to help

Whether you a have a question about your course, fees and funding, the application process or anything else, there are plenty of ways you can get in touch, and we'd love to talk to you. You can contact our friendly admissions team by phone, email or chat to us online.

 

Fees and Funding

UK Full-time Fee

£10,800

per year*
International Full-time Fee

£16,900

per year*
UK Part-time Fee

£1,200

per 20 credits*

Further Information

Studying at university is one of the most significant investments you'll ever make. Whilst you’re studying, you’ll have two main financial obligations – tuition fees and living costs. There’s lots of financial help available from the University of South Wales and external funding sources, that may provide loans (which have to be paid back) and grants, scholarships and bursaries (that don't).

*Full-time fees are per year. Part-time fees are per 20 credits. Once enrolled, the fee is anticipated to remain at the same rate throughout the duration of your study on this course except as described below.

Please be aware that we may increase the maximum fee for home students on full-time undergraduate courses only where the Welsh Government increases the permitted level of inflation of fees. Fees for all students (including part-time, postgraduate and international students) may be amended in accordance with our applicable Fees and Debt Management Policy.  We will ensure that students are given clear, intelligible, unambiguous and timely information about our courses and costs in good time, ahead of the next academic year.

 

Fees and Funding Scholarships and Busaries Alumni Discount

Additional Costs

As a student of USW, you’ll have access to lots of free resources to support your study and learning, such as textbooks, publications, online journals, laptops, and plenty of remote-access resources. Whilst in most cases these resources are more than sufficient in supporting you with completing your course, additional costs, both obligatory and optional, may be required or requested for the likes of travel, memberships, experience days, stationery, printing, or equipment.

* Obligatory

Media Loans

You can hire a range of equipment, for your assignments and practical work, for free from our Media Loans facility.

Media Loans

University Quality Assurance

At USW, we regularly review our courses in response to changing patterns of employment and skills demand to ensure we offer learning designed to reflect today’s student needs and tomorrow’s employer demands.

If during a review process course content is significantly changed, we’ll write to inform you and talk you through the changes for the coming year. But whatever the outcome, we aim to equip our students with the skillset and the mindset to succeed whatever tomorrow may bring. Your future, future-proofed.

Studying at USW

Our courses are designed with industry leaders and provide the practical skills and experiences industry demands. Our flexible courses reflect the need for life-long learning. If you value education in practice, not just in theory, then USW is for you.

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Postgraduate fees and funding
Exterior view of the University's Cardiff Campus.
Cardiff Campus
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Postgraduate Open Events

How to apply

There is an online application process for this course. Please choose the application form for your preferred start date and mode of study (i.e. full-time or part-time).

International admissions

Please see our international admissions advice for further information about how to apply as a prospective international student.