Master in Eco-Social Design

The 2-year practice-oriented and transdisciplinary study course is an educational framework for designers that aims to contribute to more sustainable, resilient, solidary, and just futures — both locally and trans-locally.

Eco-Social Design is not only about more eco-efficient products and services but is striving for future-viable modes of production, consumption, and life – for sustainable economies and cultures. Based on these general aims and values the design of products, spaces, processes, interactive applications, and transmedia communication is understood as an integrated task. Design as a catalyst of desirable and necessary change.

With your projects, you try to approach today's issues effectively by (co-)designing concrete future-viable practices today and visions for tomorrow. You are encouraged to experiment with existing and emerging practices of collaboration and co-creation. The overarching goal is to encourage a good life for all! – humans, and other living beings all over the planet now and in the future.

You will learn how to use instruments of diverse design practices and research combined with perspectives and competencies derived from social sciences and economics and from sectors such as business, activism, technology, and craft. This equips you to develop your ways to approach complex issues with reflection, creativity, and pragmatism.

You have the possibility to set your personal focus, by choosing what to deepen within the rich set of design disciplines and sciences offered in the study program.

The Free University of Bozen-Bolzano was founded in 1997. Our university has a strong international outlook, as testified by its multilingual courses (German, Italian, English, and Ladin) and the high number of students and teaching staff from abroad.

The taught modules on offer and our research projects are linked to international and inter-regional networks. For example, within the Euregio project, we are partnered with the universities of Innsbruck and Trento, and we are committed to reaching top quality standards.