MSc Integrated Product Design

The master's programme in Integrated Product Design teaches students how to create sustainable products, services, systems and business models. In one of two distinct specialisations, students either explore product, service and system design in relation to users and markets, or management of innovation and product development processes. Graduates have the expertise for careers in a wide range of industrial and business sectors.

Integrated Product Design at KTH

Engineers need advanced knowledge and highly developed skills to create competitive and sustainable products, services, and business models in today's fast-changing global market. The master's programme in Integrated Product Design offers two specialisation tracks: Industrial Design Engineering and Innovation Management and Product Development. The programme comprises a mixture of mandatory, track-specific and elective courses, allowing you to select courses that match your interests and career goals. During the programme, you will have contact with industry, and projects are often conducted in cooperation with companies or organisations, providing you with valuable experience from practice.

In the final degree project, you perform in-depth work on a problem from industry, society, or academic research that aligns with your selected specialisation. An experienced researcher supervises the degree project that you carry outin an industrial or academic environment.

The two-year programme (120 ECTS credits) is in English. Graduates are awarded a Master of Science degree. Activities within the programme are mainly held at the KTH Campus in Stockholm by KTH’s School of Industrial Engineering and Management.

The Industrial Design Engineering (IDE) track focuses on the design, functionality, and communicative aspects of products in relation to users and markets. You will study and work with product design and service design as well as system design. You will improve your skills in product development, merging a mechanical engineering point of view with an industrial design point of view. The activities covered in the design process include user insights, ideation, concept screening, form-giving and visualisation, branding, prototyping, overall systems design, choice of materials, manufacturing, and sustainable development.

In development projects throughout the programme track, you will collaborate closely with companies and organisations that have identified a potential development of a new product or service or improvement an existing one. From an IDE perspective, these cases need to include various types of user interactions and technical complexities to ensure that industrial design and mechanical engineering knowledge is required. The result of our efforts should address user needs and be adapted to user behaviour.

As IDE integrates industrial design and mechanical engineering, the teachers at IDE have a background in either of these fields. This also requires that the students who apply have completed both industrial design and mechanical engineering courses in their bachelor's degree.

KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm is one of Europe’s leading technical universities, as well as a key centre of intellectual talent and innovation. We are Sweden’s largest technical research and learning institution and home to students, researchers, and faculty from around the world dedicated to advancing knowledge.

History

KTH is a university with a rich history of pioneering ideas and innovation that dates back to 1827. For nearly 200 years KTH has educated students who have gone on to influence our present and make the technological advances that define modern society. Still today, KTH shapes the talents that will find the solutions for tomorrow’s challenges.

Research

KTH is working with industry and society in the pursuit of sustainable solutions to some of humanity’s most significant challenges: climate change, future energy supply, urbanisation, and quality of life for the rapidly-growing elderly population. We are addressing these with world-leading, high-impact research and education in natural sciences and all branches of engineering, as well as in architecture, industrial management, urban planning, history, and philosophy. Almost two-thirds of the SEK 4 billion turnovers are related to research.

Basic and applied research is performed side-by-side at KTH and interdisciplinary research is conducted in parallel with work in specific fields.

Career

KTH maintains close relationships with an expanding network of international companies and the industrial community in a number of fields, and working and studying here provides access to this network.

The latest career report shows that 94 percent of those who graduated from KTH 2010-2012 have been employed since they finished their degree and a remaining 6 percent have gone on to Ph.D. studies. Of the international student population, 30 percent go on to Ph.D. studies at KTH or other renowned universities. 32 percent of KTH Alumni leave Sweden for work or studies abroad. 13 percent lead others in their work, and 13 percent have already received their first managerial position.