24 Aug 2026
NCAD
20
9
€2,200 or €440*
Shaping the future of textiles, fashion, and beyond
The Professional Diploma in Circular by Design equips you to drive transformative environmental and social change, through the design and deployment of new circular materials, products, services, systems and policies.
The programme places a special focus on transformation within the fashion and textiles sector – recognising it as one of the world’s most resource-intensive, wasteful and environmentally impactful industries, yet also among the most creative, influential, and commercially powerful. As a sector facing profound regulatory, technological, and societal change, it provides an ideal context for developing the knowledge and skills needed to accelerate the transition to a circular economy.
Alongside this sector focus, you will also explore broader supply chain and systems-level transitions, and examine the role designers play in driving change across material, innovation, business, and policy landscapes.
You will:
• Gain a deep understanding of the environmental and social challenges facing today’s industries, particularly the fashion and textile sector.
• Design, develop and test innovative circular materials, products, services, systems, and policy approaches, in collaboration with industry partners, innovators and researchers
• Apply systems thinking and circular design strategies to real-world challenges across supply chains and organisations.
• Build the knowledge, practical skills, and confidence to make concrete circular change within your own practice or organisation
• Join a growing interdisciplinary community of designers, entrepreneurs, researchers, and changemakers transforming the future of textiles and fashion in Ireland, and the wider circular economy.
Whether your background is in design, business, engineering, sustainability, manufacturing, innovation or policy this programme prepares you to contribute to and shape the next generation of circular solutions.
The programme encourages participants to integrate research, creative practice and contemporary
methods, theory and contexts.
It promotes the application of knowledge to design practice, policymaking, and addressing ecological and social challenges across interconnected systems.
Through a combination of taught seminars, workshops, and independent study, participants will be invited to question and critique consumption and purpose and explore alternative methods for designing, producing, selling, using, and disposing at the end of the value chain.
Using their own design practice, research, and experience as a guide, participants will develop a critical perspective on the local and global challenges that industry faces, and begin to shape and articulate their unique roles within it as change makers.
Through live, industry-informed projects, participants will have the opportunity to collaborate with peers and external partners, such as designers, retailers, manufacturers, circular innovators, social enterprises, and local councils. These collaborations aim to innovate and test new circular systems, tools, products, and services.
Successive modules allow participants to develop their specialist practice, their professional,
technical and organisational skills and their knowledge and application of critical contexts to:
● EXPAND creative thinking to support a change of perspective across and beyond the sector.
● CONNECT with social and cultural change to create impact.
● BUILD sustainable communities of interest that grow without discipline.
● INCUBATE agile creative practitioners, businesses and organisations that can change
the social, cultural and economic worlds.
● POSITION change from a communication and content led place.
● ALIGN learning and teaching to a change-led view of the world, society, economies
and sectors in and beyond Ireland.
● ENGAGE with emerging technology, tools and practices to create continual change in
the creative sector.
A transition already underway
Demand for expertise in circular design expertise and systems thinking is growing rapidly across Ireland and Europe. National policy, including Ireland’s Circular Economy Strategy and the National Textiles Strategy, together with the EU Circular Economy Action Plan and the EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles, is accelerating the transition towards more circular products, services, and business models.
By 2030, textile products placed on the EU market must be more durable, repairable, recyclable, and increasingly made from recycled fibres, while meeting high environmental and social standards.
Circular thinking is at the heart of this change. It focuses on designing out waste and pollution from the outset, keeping materials in use for longer, and regenerating natural systems. And because up to 80% of a product’s environmental impact is determined at the design stage, the role of designer is critical.
NCAD’s Professional Diploma in Circular By Design equips you with the tools, methods, and mindset to lead in the circular transition.
This Professional Diploma is running from September 2026 until January 2027.
Learners are required to commit +20hrs per week to successfully complete the programme. Learning hours per week vary, but typically, learners can expect up to 1 day per week (7-8 hrs on Tuesdays) of contact time, and the remaining time (10-12 hours) will consist of individual and self-led work and study.
The programme will be delivered through a blended model, with both online and offline learning, to accommodate a diverse group of learners. Types of learning and teaching methods include lectures, seminars, masterclasses, workshops, small group presentations and tutorials. In general, learners will be expected to be on the NCAD campus for in-person delivery, once every three weeks.
The professional Diploma culminates in Capstone Project in which students undertake a project that demonstrates learners’ knowledge of creative circular practices and theories.
The circular economy is an economic and industrial model based on the principles of reducing consumption of natural resources, designing out waste and pollution, keeping products and materials in use for as long as possible, and recycling the materials at the end of life.
However, the transition from a linear to a circular requires new and additional attitudes, knowledge and skill-sets. An estimated 80% of a product’s environmental impact is determined at the design stage, before production even begins. Therefore, designers have a pivotal role to play in reshaping all aspects of the industry – from materials, to products, to services, to systems.
For example, the fashion and textiles industry is the joint third highest emitter of greenhouses globally, responsible for 10% of carbon emissions, more than all international flights and shipping combined. Operating in a largely linear take-make-use-waste system, textiles is one of the most pollutive and wasteful industries on earth.
This programme was developed through extensive industry engagement facilitated by the CFA’s established relationships with leading design and creative sector bodies. The curriculum has been informed by the Design and Crafts Council of Ireland and the Institute of Designers in Ireland all of which have contributed to identifying specific skill gaps in circular and sustainable design practice. Graduates of the micro- credential can progress to an MA in Circular by Design and then PhD level.
Throughout the programme, learners receive input, in the form of lecturers, panel discussions and coaching and project briefs from a number of international experts, companies and innovators.
These included in the past: Patagonia, Fashion for Good, The United Repair Centre, The Hot&Cool Institute, The Environmental Protection Agency, The Department of Climate, Energy and Environment, The Rediscovery Centre, Oxfam Ireland, Fibershed Ireland, Bohemians Football Club, Change Clothes Crumlin, ENFUSE, We Make Good, PUreTex, Dublin Waste to Energy Plant and many others.
The Professional Diploma aims to prepare graduates for careers in the textiles and fashion industry, independent circular design consultancy, start-up ventures, creative practice and academic research.
You will have the foundational knowledge, skills, and attitude to develop and implement novel circular design and business model concepts.
With the skills to develop circular design solutions related to material and product innovation and systems and service innovation, graduates have a wide range of local and global opportunities available to them. Potential career pathways for graduates include:
Graduates are also supported to progress to MA and then PhD level.
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.
There is a fee of €2200 (or €440 with LFS) for this programme.
Apply via Springboard
Places are limited. If the course fills sooner, applications will close/go to waitlist.
Programme Contact
CFA coordinator Joanna Crawley crawleyj@staff.ncad.ie
Admissions Contact
postgraduate@ncad.ie
01 636 4200
Class 2025
“This course has been extremely eye opening. It made me realize how constantly changing the landscape is, how important it is that we stay aware of what’s happening today from a government perspective, from an industry perspective”.
“This course really is one of its kind, it made me realize that you can’t stop. You have to continuously upskill. You have to be part of the discourse. I am so much more ready for the industry”.
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 and received provisional eligibility offer.
Applicants then apply to NCAD and undergo an academic review.
Please see eligibility criteria HERE.
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