Postgraduate Financed training (50%)
Design for Social Impact
Designers, artists, architects, social scientists and activists are called upon to gain an effective awareness of the various forms of social reality and to engage in Design for Social Impact processes and practices.
Part of the Blue Design Alliance, the Design for Social Impact postgraduate course is a practical course that considers and analyzes emerging global issues to find effective local responses with the support of a specialized faculty and inspiring international guests. In the current context of crisis and conflict, marked by growing social inequalities and exclusion and injustice, Design is called to greater involvement and solidarity, activism and awareness in its social intervention. By highlighting collaborative, participatory and co-design methodologies which are integrated into translocal, self-organized and decentralized processes, this postgraduate course is committed to a practice-led approach and to critical and systemic thinking. This results in sensitive and supportive ways of designing, capable of generating socially effective change.
The use of Design as a development tool should be understood not just as the development of innovative product lines but also as the creation of new interactions among producers from different areas and through the use of different techniques.
Giulio Vinaccia
Reality often seems to be left outside the university. Social issues tend to become a concept that is thought of in a neutral and standardized way from the safe and privileged confines of the school. However, the far-reaching implications of injustice, inequality and exclusion, the urgency posed by real contexts of crisis, conflict and prejudice, and the profound social imbalances that affect real lives call for new forms of involvement, activism and solidarity. The school not only has a social responsibility to intervene in the real world and contribute to its positive transformation. It also provides the opportunity to learn from difference and create collaborative ways of thinking and acting that are socially effective.
We understand socially engaged arts interventions as a way of enhancing human development for social inequality and well-being. It can potentially transform individuals and society through raising critical consciousness, promoting social change, introducing political and social issues to the public sphere, and even stimulating a social movement at large.
Profile
Objectives
- To provide a broad, up-to-date and critical knowledge of what characterizes Design for Social Impact in the 21st century. To introduce inspiring methodologies and projects, stimulating activism, solidarity and social involvement.
- To apply participatory methods, demonstrating that their effectiveness rests on the collaborative process that connects bottom-up approaches, collaboration, co-production and co-design.
- To develop strategic thinking in design that can result in communication, products, services and citizen governance projects that positively transform social realities.
- To educate designers to work in real contexts and communities, contributing to their empowerment and dismantling hierarchical ways of doing design.
- To work with public and private entities, local authorities and NGOs, to create a new agenda for Design and the creation of public policies capable of tackling climate emergencies, social conflicts and the significant inequalities which, both locally and globally, threaten the planet and the well-being of human beings and those who are more-than-human.
- To train in systemic thinking that identifies and creates relationships, using design as a uniter of new projective realities and social aspirations.
Recipients
The course is aimed at students or professionals from the various areas of Design, Architecture and Art, as well as Social, Political and Diplomatic Sciences, or professions related to the work of governmental and non-governmental organizations, interested in the application of Design tools to drive positive social and environmental change.
Design for Social Impact
Study plan
The Design for Social Impact postgraduate course takes place over 1 semester and consists of 6 modules. Each module includes a week-long immersive workshop, with the participation of inspiring Portuguese and international guests, and the creation of a design exercise as a result. The design exercises in each module reflect the hands-on nature of the postgraduate course (practice led) and are designed to be tools in a toolbox. These tools will be put into action in the final module of the Postgraduate course with the development of a summary project in which methodological, critical and design skills are consolidated and applied.
Lecturers
Our dedicated educators foster a stimulating learning environment to help you reach your design potential.
Guests
Inspiring national and international guests complement the teaching staff and lead immersive workshops.
Design for Social Impact
Tuition fee 2024-2025
Scholarships
Blue Design Alliance
This initiative offers scholarships for Professional Higher Technical Courses (CTesP), taught at ESAD, and Postgraduate Courses. All the courses are practically orientated and allow you to pursue a professional career, where the theme of water will always be present, as well as caring for the ecosystems of rivers, seas and oceans.
CTeSP - Postgraduate Courses - Continuing Education
Administrative Services
Information and Contacts
If you have any questions about applying or scholarships, don't hesitate to contact us.
monday to friday 9:00–12:00; 14:00–17:00
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