2 Nov 2026
NCAD
5
8 weeks
€600 or €120*
This programme enables learners to explore the capacity of design as a critical and collaborative agent of social, cultural and economic change.
It asks the learner to consider the potential impact of design on a range of contemporary commercial, social and cultural issues.
Equal emphasis is placed on critical thinking. Learners explore speculative, fictional, discursive, and impact-led design methodologies, equipping them with the skills required to provoke meaningful change.
Demand for transformation-oriented design skills is growing at national level, driven by climate action agendas, social inclusion priorities, public service reform, and the professionalisation of social enterprise in Ireland. The programme attracts participants from a range of disciplines and sectors, reflecting the cross-sectoral nature of transformation design demand.
The programme targets designers, artists, creative practitioners, social entrepreneurs, and professionals across the public, community, and cultural sectors who are engaged in or seeking to move into roles where creative practice drives systemic change. It is transversal by design, welcoming participants from visual art, product and graphic design, social enterprise, public administration, and education.
The programme’s emphasis on iterative, geographically sensitive, and sector-relevant transformation reflects direct input from enterprise partners who identified systems-level design competencies as a strategic priority.
Monday Evenings, 2.5 hours over 8 weeks, blended
Week 1 – Transformation Sprint: Positioning, System Mapping & Context Setting
Week 2 – Partner Context Presentations & Research Questions
Week 3 – Analysis, Sense-making & Insight Framing
Week 4 – Opportunity Framing & Futurescape Formative Presentation
Week 5 – Systems Change Project Planning Tools
Week 6 – Ideating, Prototyping & Co-Design
Week 7 – Testing, Evaluation & Storytelling
Week 8 – Summative Presentation & Public Symposium
The Professional Certificate in Design for Transformation prepares participants for the growing labour market demand for designers and creative practitioners who can act as agents of meaningful social, cultural, and economic change.
The programme develops skills in speculative, critical, and impact-led design methodologies; collaborative creative project development; systems thinking; and the ability to address contemporary commercial, social, and cultural challenges through transformative design practice.
Participants also develop the ability to ‘story’ transformation to communicate change narratives in ways that resonate with sector, geography, and stakeholders. These competencies are directly applicable in social enterprise, NGO, public sector innovation, design consultancy, and any setting where design is used as a tool for systemic change.
The programme is explicitly transversal, spanning design, social enterprise, cultural production, and civic engagement, and supports learners in evolving their practice to meet the iterative and changing demands of a transforming world.
There is a fee of €600 for this programme (€120 with with LFS) for this programme.
100% payment is required upfront at registration from the LFS recipients.
Apply via Springboard
Joanna Crawley crawleyj@staff.ncad.ie
Creative Futures Academy are delighted to be awarded significant Micro-credential Learner Fee Subsidy (LFS) to support learners attending our future-focused courses in both the National College of Art & Design and the Institute of Art Design + Technology, Dun Laoghaire.
All applicants interested in the LFS must first apply through springboardcourses.ie (applications open in June) and received provisional eligibility offer.
Applicants then apply to NCAD and undergo an academic review.
Please see eligibility criteria HERE.
Register: Before applying for a course you must register on the springboardcourses.ie website and log-in. To do this browse to “Register” in the top-right of the page and enter a valid email address and a password. Once you register you will be sent an activation email to the email address you entered. You must open this email and click the “Activate Now” link to activate your account. You can then log-in.
On the homepage, click on Search Courses. When you have found a course which you are interested in, click on More Details. If you would like to apply to the course, click on Apply Now.
The application process involves five steps.
After you have applied to a course or courses or have saved an application, when you go to your Name in the top right-hand side of the screen, you will see a dropdown menu. There you will see Applications.
Here, you will see the Status of your applications. If you have saved an application but not submitted it, it will be a ‘Draft’. If you have submitted it, it will say ‘Submitted’. A submitted application cannot be re-submitted or edited.
