Master Eco-Social Design

hidden

About the Programme

We are dedicated to creating sustainable, equitable, and resilient futures. Our interventions address systemic challenges by focusing on individuals, the commons, and the planet. Through collaborative, practice-based approaches, we tackle social, environmental, and economic issues. Eco-Social Designers engage with the complex, “wicked” problems of living within the planet’s ecological limits. They navigate intricate systems and collaborate with both human and non-human actors to design interventions at multiple scales — from experimental prototyping and community activism to policymaking and organisational redesign.

Our offer

We offer ambitious designers an immersive full- or part-time program, providing opportunities to develop their transformative design practice in collaboration with partners from research, civil society, public administration, and industry.

Our Challenges

We ask questions, engage stakeholders, experiment, prototype solutions.
How might we...

use design to initiate change within complex, adaptive environments?
understand and respond to challenges systemically?
embed regeneration into design, systems, and organisational practice?
prototype infrastructures for resilient communities?
foster planetary thinking and transformation literacy?

What you can expect

Innovative design degree program in a multidisciplinary environment.
Exploratory and research-driven - dedicated to excellence in design.
Solving wicked problems: exploring difficult challenges to create new business opportunities.
Low student-to-teacher ratio of 1:7.
Outstanding workshops - translating concepts into prototypes.

Specifics for the Master Eco-Social Design

From skills to literacies: A tailored, dynamic teaching framework centered around five core eco-social literacies, fostering theoretical and practical competencies.
Safe, inclusive, and equitable outcomes emphasising the interconnectedness of environmental and societal challenges.
Design as a movement for societal change: Highly interdisciplinary and collaborative learning environment enables designers to explore and redefine their roles in addressing today's most pressing issues.
Transformative competencies, strategies, and theories of change: Through system thinking, future literacy, and environmental literacy, students learn to collaborate with bottom-up initiatives and government bodies.
Design for more-than-human stakeholder ecologies: Students innovate for regenerative designs and consider the broader ecological impacts of their work.

Expertise

Our lecturers support students in the following areas:

Socio-political systems
Policymaking
Social Innovation
Environmental and Future studies
Social and Strategic Design
Design Research
Critical Technology Studies

Language of Studies

MA programs in Design, Digital Ideation, Service Design and Eco-Social Design are taught in English.

Fields of activity

Graduates excel in systems thinking, understanding the complex interactions between social and environmental factors, and developing informed and sustainable design positions. They systematically assess impact and are equipped to lead cross-sector innovation, collaborating with partners from industry, research, and public and cultural sectors to create sustainable value for people and society.

Registration

The application deadline is March. Late admission is open for exceptional candidates until mid-June.

Contact

Jan-Christoph Zoels – Head, MA Design programs, jan-christoph.zoels@hslu.ch
Karin Fink – Co-Lead, MA Eco-Social Design, karin.fink@hslu.ch
Andreas Unteidig – Co-Lead, MA Eco-Social Design, andreas.unteidig@hslu.ch