Master of Arts - Design Innovation and Management

MA Design Innovation and Management sits at the junction of creative practice and business: design thinking and innovation methodology, managing creative teams and processes, service and experience design, strategic and commercial context, and a major project applying the toolkit to a real problem.

The source records this course as including a placement or work-based element within its one-year structure, preserved in this sheet’s duration field — a meaningful addition for international students, since applied project work with an organisation supplies both UK experience and referees within the taught year.

The programme suits designers moving toward leadership and business graduates moving toward creative industries, and its cohorts are deliberately mixed, which is part of the pedagogy: innovation work is cross-disciplinary, and the seminar room rehearses that.

The applied element recorded in the source structure deserves emphasis during counselling, because it changes the value of the year for international students substantially: a placement or work-based project generates UK industry contact, a referee and a portfolio case study within the taught programme itself, rather than leaving those things to be assembled during the Graduate Route period afterwards. Applicants should ask DMU at offer stage how the element is arranged and whether it is guaranteed or competitive. The £16,800 fee applies across the three recorded September cycles, and cohorts are typically mixed between design and business backgrounds.

Graduates enter design management, innovation consultancy and service design roles where the combination of creative credibility and commercial literacy is scarce. The master’s carries Graduate Route eligibility at 18 months under the rules governing post-2026 applications, with dependants excluded throughout taught study.