Multi-disciplinary design education in the UK

Design and innovation are critical to the UK reaching its economic goals. Reigniting the enterprise economy, commercialising science and technology, and embedding innovation in the public sector are vital for the country’s future economic and social success. This can only happen if the UK’s workforce includes people with the skills to harness design as a tool for productivity and growth.

Over the last few years, universities across the UK have been actively engaged in developing new courses and centres, which enable design students, graduates and researchers to work alongside and in collaboration with other disciplines. 

This report describes the courses and centres that have been created, with the aim of showing why enabling design and other students to experience multi-disciplinary teams and projects is vital for the UK economy. It also describes how multi-disciplinary design activity is being embedded in the UK’s Higher Education Institutions (HEIs).

It ends by making some recommendations for ways that HEIs, supported by policy-makers, could most effectively continue to embed multi-disciplinary design education across a range of subjects. 

You can also download eight interviews with the universities that participated here.