What does the future hold for us all? Well, instead of wondering, why not design it?

The Certificate in Speculative Design Futures is a new course suitable for designers and creatives practitioners from all disciplines interested in designing a positive future for all (people and planet).

The course will equip you with futures thinking literacy and the practical speculative design skills needed to engage critically with the uncertainty and complexity of wicked problems that exist in our world today.

From the urgency of climate change, and pervasive new technologies, to the precarity of peace and the search for tolerance and inclusion, the need for creative and concrete alternative visions of our futures must be envisaged.

Our course will provide you with a set of critical thinking and making tools that will enable you to confront futures design challenges with confidence.

During the course, you will:

• Be guided through a range of futures and speculative design thinking, approaches, processes and methods as you learn about how to map time and describe future design contexts.
• Apply a range of interdisciplinary research and foresight methods to question and analyse the social, environmental, economic and political impact of predicted future trends and emerging technologies.
• Explore new ways to practice in the creation of speculative design prototypes, narratives and probes that demonstrate alterative and concrete visions of the future.

Course content will include:

• Introduction to Speculative Design, approaches, philosophies and case studies
  • Defining speculative goals and values
  • Scoping a speculative design futures project
  • Speculative and Critical Design principles
  • Futures research
  • Design Fiction principles
  • Mapping time and systems
  • World building
  • Emotional design
  • Experimental design prototypes
  • Participatory group exercises and charette
  • Project presentations

You will be assessed through class participation and two assignments:

• A group design workshop (online or in person)
• Speculative design futures project / prototype and report

(independent learning 50 hours approx.)

The course will be delivered on a blended format as follows:

Saturdays | 9.30am – 3.30pm | On Campus

• 28th September 2024
• 12th October 2024

Thursdays | 6.30pm – 8.30pm | Online

• 3rd and 24th October 2024
• 7th, 14th and 28th November 2024
• 5th December 2024

Undergraduate qualification of 2nd Class Honours or higher at Honours Degree level in design or a related discipline.

Applicants may also be considered provided that they can demonstrate Honours Degree equivalence, which can be verified through our RPL [recognition of prior learning] process.

You will need to have a laptop and Adobe Creative Suite.

Please apply HERE

As part of the application, you will be required to provide a CV with details of:

• Education / Qualifications,
• Professional experience, and
• Creative work (e.g., a link to a portfolio website).

Please note:

IADT operates a rolling admissions policy for graduate taught courses, with decisions issued in 4 weeks after a submitted and complete application is received. An application is incomplete until you provide all required items on the checklist (including the application fee, if applicable).

Generally, courses will remain open to applications until all places are filled.

Fees for this course in 2024 are €550, subsidised by the Higher Education Authority’s Human Capital Initiative.  Check your eligibility and read about the documents you will be required to submit HERE

Fees for those who do not meet the eligibility criteria above are €1,100.

CFA Scholarship:

A CFA scholarship encourages the participation of learners from sections of society that are significantly under-represented in higher education by offering one free place on all of our CFA short courses.

Find out if you are eligible to apply HERE 

Fill in the CFA@IADT scholarship application form HERE

Please email any queries to Elena Somoza, IADT Creative Futures Academy Co-ordinator, at iadt@creativefutures.ie

Human Capital Initiative HCI Pillar 3 Micro-Credentials Subsidy funding

Creative Futures Academy has been awarded a total of €315,640 from the Human Capital Initiative HCI Pillar 3 Micro-Credentials Subsidy funding. Subsidies will range from 50 – 80% of the total course costs for eligible learners. Applications are now open for a number of courses with more coming on-stream in late 2024 and 2025. Terms & Conditions apply.