Design for Change MA

Over the course of a year, the Design for Change programme moves from taught and structured elements through to supervised but independent and student-led study.

Design Labs

The design labs are courses offered by the programme in both Semester 1 (Autumn-Winter) and Semester 2 (Winter-Spring). They provide thematic focus to open project briefs, encouraging independent interpretation in the design studio. These labs have several aims for developing your design-for-change-based skillset:

• To help you unlearn certain, perhaps assumed perspectives and ways of working.
• To introduce you to a variety of different ways of designing and living, as demonstrated by others/other cultures, from which to learn.
• To develop the imaginative use of analytical and critical design research methods.
• To encourage application of contemporary methods of participation, production and prototyping to discover new insights.
• To facilitate excellence in forms of collaboration in and communication, presentation and dissemination of your work.

The design labs are complemented by two elective course options, which you choose from subjects offered across the wider College of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences.

Designing for Change: Projects and Practices

Our programme adopts a project-oriented pedagogy, but what does it mean to design and carry-out a design research project for change?

This Semester 2 course, common to all students on programme, is designed to support you in preparation for your summer dissertation by identifying and outlining precedents and approaches relevant to projects that embrace designs for change.

You will be supported in developing your dissertation topic and a methodology specially tailored for it.

Dissertation

The programme ends with an independent dissertation project embracing student-led, situated, and practical interventions addressing real-world challenges.

All students take this course. You will have opportunities to self-organise, to work with communities or groups of your choosing or to arrange to complete a work-based dissertation with a local, national or international partner, applying your skills to real-world situations.

The year ends with a student-led Degree Show or exhibition of works, which presents both an opportunity for celebration, and valuable experience in communicating and presenting your designs to wider audiences.

Teaching

Design for Change’s main teaching is conducted through studio-based lectures, workshops, crits and seminars.

Your teachers are an engaged group of interdisciplinary design researchers and educators who are passionate about helping to shape the world for the better.

On the programme, we will invite you to engage in making, reading and writing, critiquing, experimenting and exploring.

The method of teaching is discursive: you will be invited to speak aloud and engage in conversation with each other and with staff, as part of collective efforts to analyse and discuss the course content and your contributions.

The content of the courses draws on the research interests and projects of the staff, as well as responding to current events and global movements (such as the Circular Economy, Slow, Buen Vivir or Transition movements) and frameworks (such as the Sustainable Development Goals).

As our students come from diverse backgrounds, the programme is a broad one and the teaching stretches to bring these different perspectives together. As such, it relies on you bringing your existing skills and interests to your studies and sharing them with your colleagues and cohort.

For similar reasons, programme staff signpost the resources that ECA and the wider University provides students for specific technical upskilling (for example, inductions and learning opportunities in the ECA workshops, online courses and software packages), and we draw on the expertise of our ECA technician colleagues.

Assessment

The Design for Change programme assesses student work and learning by considering both process and product, and all of the programme-provided courses are coursework assessed (we have no exams, although elective option courses may do).

The assessment tasks are mostly quite open (design) briefs that students are invited to interpret and respond to, and we often ask for reflection on your process as part of the project brief.

All Design for Change students must pass enough taught courses in the first two semesters (terms) to progress to the dissertation course, which is a substantial independent project in the summer term that counts for a third of the programme in weighting.

In all cases work is assessed against the Learning Outcomes for the course, which are readily available and shared with you from the start.

All of the marking is conducted rigorously and constructively, with an emphasis on written or verbal feedback that you can use as you develop future work. Numerical grading is provided for you to consider as part of your own development and learning process and there is no comparison made with other students by the programme.

All marking/assessment is moderated by a second marker and the programme’s entire assessment procedures and practices are overseen by both the postgraduate Exam Board for the Design School and the programme’s External Examiner - who ‘examines’ the programme, not the students!

The professional knowledge, skills and abilities developed on this programme can be applied across a variety of intellectual and creative contexts.

They will prepare you for a rewarding career as a designer, maker, researcher, strategist or consultant within a variety of public and private sector organisations including:

• art and design studios and practices
• museums and galleries
• government departments
• non-governmental organisations such as charities, international bodies or research collectives.

Moreover, it will prepare you for lifelong learning and help you hone the abilities to critically and carefully navigate the challenges that (co-)designing (and life!) throws at you.

We also encourage our students to consider continuing their studies and to perhaps embark on future careers in academia, contributing to emerging fields of inquiry, teaching and using their research-through-design skills.

Similarly, if you are already in this space and are looking for career development, perhaps from within (higher) education, the programme is also very well suited to this, and a good number of our alumni have taken this route.

We regularly invite our alumni back to give talks about and share what they have done since graduating, so you will get to meet and hear from them during your time on the programme and benefit from their valuable insights and experiences.

Field trips

In our courses we often move beyond the studio, out into the city and wider surroundings. As a student, you will experience gallery visits and trips to green spaces as well as exercises or workshops that move activity out into the urban realm as these are used pedagogically, in part to emphasise the value of experiential learning.

Design for Change also has an annual residential field trip which involves the whole cohort of students visiting examples of people and places in Scotland and northern England that are demonstrating designs for change.

We visit to learn in-situ, to get to know one another better, to experience for ourselves, to meet the people involved and to be inspired.

The field trip is a collaborative venture between staff and students and will invite you to participate in ways such as planning, cooking and eating together, going for walks, sharing reflections and documenting experiences.

Campus facilities

Design for Change is mostly taught and experienced from our design studio, where you are also encouraged to work independently in order to build community with your cohort and help create a vibrant studio culture.

The studio is in the Lauriston campus of ECA, which is in the centre of the city of Edinburgh. Elective course options may be based in other parts of the University’s estate, allowing you to experience and explore further afield.

ECA and the wider University provide a rich array of facilities, and in particular we encourage our students to take advantage of the University’s outstanding libraries and ECA’s excellent workshops (print, wood, textiles, metal and so on) and maker spaces. This reflects the programme’s strong emphasis on thinking-through-making, research-through-design and the blending of theory and practice.

Lauriston campus redevelopment

ECA are excited to be undertaking a capital redevelopment of ECA’s Lauriston campus over the next 3 years, from April 2024 to April 2027.

The project aims to maximise the use of existing space, improve accessibility, and create a vibrant campus that fosters collaboration and innovation.

The project involves refurbishing and repurposing various spaces across the Lauriston campus, including technical facilities, student and teaching spaces, and the relocation of the Reid School of Music from Alison House to the Lauriston campus. New social spaces, seminar rooms, and studios are being created to accommodate our growing community.

You can find more about the project at the below link:

Building work starts at ECA’s Lauriston campus | Edinburgh College of Art

These entry requirements are for the 2025/26 academic year and requirements for future academic years may differ. Entry requirements for the 2026/27 academic year will be published on 1 Oct 2025.

A UK 2:1 honours degree, or its international equivalent

We also ask for evidence of your ability to communicate in non-textual forms as well as your motivation to engage in creative design-led practices which embrace a wide variety of media, materials and techniques. This should take the form of a portfolio.

Each portfolio document should contain two explicit components:

• a clearly identified hyperlink to a two minute video where you introduce yourself and discuss a potential circumstance for change across at least one of the programme themes (social, technical, environmental, inclusive, or political change). The video should showcase your ability to both address and present complex subject matter supported by appropriate reference materials (which may include images; articles; visualisations; compositions; performance; drawing; and/or writing).

• a collection of visual support material which demonstrates your affinity and aptitude for engaging in creative, design-led work. This can be existing project work, a portfolio of drawings, objects or artefacts and the processes of their making; sketchbook development; collated and curated research findings/materials with analysis; whatever exemplifies your creative approaches to thinking and communicating complex information and ideas.

The single portfolio document containing these two parts (video link and visual support material) must not exceed a maximum of 14 A4 papes or 7 A3 pages, any any text must be clearly readable at this size.

The portfolio is a requirement which helps us to determine your level of creative competency, to help us understand in which ways you will be able to flourish on our programme. Prior training in art, design or architecture is not required, but a desire and the courage to communicate change through multi-media means is expected. Professional experience equivalent to academic qualifications may be considered.

Students from China

This degree is Band C.

• Postgraduate entry requirements for students from China

International qualifications

Check whether your international qualifications meet our general entry requirements:

• Entry requirements by country

English language requirements

Regardless of your nationality or country of residence, you must demonstrate a level of English language competency which will enable you to succeed in your studies.

English language tests

We accept the following English language qualifications at the grades specified:

• IELTS Academic: total 7.0 with at least 6.0 in each component. We do not accept IELTS One Skill Retake to meet our English language requirements.
• TOEFL-iBT (including Home Edition): total 100 with at least 20 in each component. We do not accept TOEFL MyBest Score to meet our English language requirements.
• C1 Advanced (CAE) / C2 Proficiency (CPE): total 185 with at least 169 in each component.
• Trinity ISE: ISE III with passes in all four components.
• PTE Academic: total 73 with at least 59 in each component. We do not accept PTE Academic Online.
• Oxford ELLT: 8 overall with at least 6 in each component.

Your English language qualification must be no more than three and a half years old from the start date of the programme you are applying to study, unless you are using IELTS, TOEFL, Trinity ISE or PTE, in which case it must be no more than two years old.

Degrees taught and assessed in English

We also accept an undergraduate or postgraduate degree that has been taught and assessed in English in a majority English speaking country, as defined by UK Visas and Immigration:

• UKVI list of majority English speaking countries

We also accept a degree that has been taught and assessed in English from a university on our list of approved universities in non-majority English speaking countries (non-MESC).

• Approved universities in non-MESC

If you are not a national of a majority English speaking country, then your degree must be no more than five years old at the beginning of your programme of study.

Find out more about our language requirements:

• English language requirements

Tuition fees

Funding for postgraduate study is different to undergraduate study, and many students need to combine funding sources to pay for their studies.

Most students use a combination of the following funding to pay their tuition fees and living costs:

• borrowing money

  • taking out a loan
  • family support
• personal savings
• income from work
• employer sponsorship
• scholarships

Explore sources of funding for postgraduate study

Featured funding

• Edinburgh College of Art scholarships

UK government postgraduate loans

If you live in the UK, you may be able to apply for a postgraduate loan from one of the UK’s governments.

The type and amount of financial support you are eligible for will depend on:

• your programme
• the duration of your studies
• your tuition fee status

Programmes studied on a part-time intermittent basis are not eligible.

• UK government and other external funding

Other funding opportunities

Search for scholarships and funding opportunities:

• Search for funding