One of the most exciting outcomes of Design London, the Royal College of Art’s collaboration with Imperial College, is a new interdisciplinary Masters in Service Design which is now open for applications for the Academic year 2012/13.
Service Design has become the new frontier for designers as the service sector recognises the transformative impact of design practice in creating new levels of value in both thepublic and private sector. Services account for around three quarters of GDP in the developed economies and almost 80 per cent of employment.
This new Service Design programme, builds on an existing and successful core platform created by Design London. The course offers a two year MA in Service Design, as well as opportunities for MPhil and PhD research, and will be delivered in association with Imperial College London. Students will be immersed in the unique interdisciplinary environment of the RCA, enabling them to become specialists in service design within the exciting design education environment of the RCA’s School of Design, as well as benefit from the digital technology and management disciplines from Imperial College.
The MA course has been designed for:
– Graduates from design disciplines including product and industrial design, interaction design and visual communications who are seeking to enhance their portfolio of skills
– Graduates from engineering and computer science who are seeking to develop their design capabilities and combine their technical expertise with the service design discipline and deliver high-value added services for their clients
– Experienced designers, especially communications and product designers, seeking to expand their capabilities with services and service systems design to engage higher up the value chain in terms of strategic design and delivery, or even launch new service and digital ventures through the RCA’s incubator
– Mid and senior professionals from industry and the public sector seeking to enhance their capabilities to apply a design-led approach to the transformation of consumer, business-to-business and public sector services.
Curriculum, which will be offered to the students, has been prepared jointly by IBM Turkey University Relations team, Paul Kontogiorgis, IT Services Program Director at IBM USA and Atılım University. Under the program, cooperation is made with the universities and research centers abroad in addition to the industry. Thereby, students and instructors will have the opportunity to observe various projects, teams and fields of study as well as specializing by practicing at IBM software labs which will be established at the university.