Established and emergent artists, curators, activists, designers, makers, cultural producers, ecologists, scientists, architects, landscape architects, social workers, policy makers, biodiversity and sustainability officers, educators, horticulturalists, active citizenship, citizen scientists, lifelong learning

Dates:

Principles: Sep 3, 10, 17, 24
Collaborations: Oct 8, 15, 22, 29
Practices: Feb 25, Mar 4, 11, 18
Capstone: May 27, Jun 3, 10, 17

Learners embarking on this journey have two entry routes:

• sign up straight onto the Professional Diploma (application link on this page) and join Module 1 (Principles) alongside student cohort completing  Professional Certificate in Art and Ecology (3rd – 24th Sep), then complete following three modules (schedule below). Learners choosing this route have a place on the Diploma guaranteed.
• sign up to do the Professional Certificate in Art and Ecology (3rd – 24th Sep, applications to pen in the summer) and then by week 3 inform course coordinators that they want to progress onto the Diploma. This option very much depends on the availability of places.

The three successive modules following from Professional Certificate (1st Creative Principles) will focus on: 

• 2nd Creative Collaborations (October 2025): working closely with local sites and investigating a range of symbiotic relationships, material and bio-informed strategies and how these might be incorporated into a practice. 
• 3rd Creative Practices (Spring 2026): exploring genealogies of environmental art and activism, transdisciplinary collaborations, “more than human worlds” and nature-culture intersections
• 4th Creative Capstone (Summer 2026): undertaking a project that demonstrates learners’ knowledge of creative ecological practices and theories.

As part of a suite of programmes that make up the Creative Futures offer at NCAD, the Professional Diploma in Art and Ecology seeks to provide a scholarly framework for students who wish to study specific, connected aspects of creative disciplines and themes within a leading art and design college setting.  

Many aspects of the suite of programmes will be delivered in collaboration with partners from the Creative Sector and in addition, a number of programme sessions will have a public dimension, allowing us to invite other interested parties from the fields of contemporary creative practice and scholarship to join our conversations and creative activities.

Successive modules allow students to develop their practice, their professional, technical and organisational skills and their knowledge and application of critical contexts. 

Modes of learning will include field work, lectures, seminars and workshops along with cross-disciplinary conversations and collaborations.  A key focus is on the productive intersection points where creative practices meet scientific, legal and social policy debates, to manifest outcomes that catalyse progress.

Learners will learn through material delivered in advance of each session prescribing group work and also individual initiative. 

This diploma lays the foundation for further study at Masters and Phd level.

The programme is designed to meet the needs of the creative sector within and beyond Ireland.  As such, the constituent awards explicitly address key requirements identified in extensive discussions and research undertaken with industry partners and representative bodies such as the Arts Council of Ireland, Design and Crafts Council of Ireland and Institute of Designers in Ireland, and findings from government and sectoral reports.

It is required that all applicants have a Completed Professional Certificate (Creative Principles) module. Professional Certificate (Creative Principles) is the foundation module of the Professional Diploma programme.

Educational Standard: All applicants are expected to present an approved Bachelor degree at minimum level of 2nd class honours (2.2)

Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL)  – Applicants who do not meet the minimum academic entry requirements for admission may be considered on the basis of a recognition of previous  learning  whether based on prior relevant experience or other relevant credited or non credited or learning  (RPL). In such cases each applicant will be considered on a case-by-case basis based on a review of the applicant’s CV and other supporting documentation.

Please contact ncad@creativefutures.ie for further information. 

Qualifying Examination –  In certain cases the academic team may choose to set a qualifying assignment in order to assess an applicant’s suitability for admission.

You may apply for the programme if you are currently completing your Undergraduate Degree. NCAD will review the rest of your application If necessary, we can make you a Conditional Offer. When your degree is completed and you send us final transcripts we will upgrade this to a Full Offer. 

Applicants who have not been educated through English must show proof of achieving IELTS 6.5 (with a minimum of 6 in the writing section on the Academic Version) or an equivalent score in another accepted test.

Art and Ecology alumni exhibit in ‘Earthbound Tales’

Melissa O’Brien, Maidenhair fern, 2025.

Karen Bowett, Dervla Clarke + Jamie Lemoine (POND Studios), Estibaliz Errazquin and Melissa O’Brien.

Part of the 2025 Brigit: Dublin City Celebrating Women and mark the launch of our Sustainability Policy, Pallas Projects/Studios are pleased to present Earthbound Tales, curated by Cristina Nicotra.

What does it mean to be native or non-native? What is nature, or natural?
Earthbound Tales explores these questions.

The exhibition is inspired by the intricate relationships between the wider ecology of humans and non-humans that we are enmeshed with despite our urban life. It is an invitation for the community to discover and observe the inextricable assemblage of the novel, native, and almost-native-at-this-point ecologies in our landscape. It is an opportunity to feel the alternative time and space of these inhabitants with curiosity.