MSc Design Futures
- MSc
Overview
Imagine what's next. The future isn't something to predict. It's something to explore, imagine, and create.
Our MSc in Design Futures will prepare you to use design as a tool for anticipating change and shaping better futures. Combining strategic foresight, systems thinking, speculative design, and responsible innovation, you will develop the skills to navigate uncertainty and respond to complex challenges across business, technology, society, and the environment.
Through real-world projects and interdisciplinary collaboration, you will investigate emerging trends, explore alternative futures, and develop creative responses to challenges such as climate change, artificial intelligence, demographic change, and social inequality. Learn to use futures methods, scenario planning, speculative design, systems mapping, and design research to help organisations make more informed, resilient, and ethical decisions.
You will join a vibrant interdisciplinary Design Innovation community, studying alongside students specialising in Design Strategy, Service Design, and Regenerative Design. Shared learning across these disciplines reflects the collaborative nature of contemporary design practice, while your specialist programme enables you to develop deep expertise in futures thinking and strategic foresight.
As a Russell Group university, the University of Bristol combines world-leading research with hands-on practice. You will learn to balance creativity with evidence, critical thinking, and experimentation, developing future-focused solutions that are innovative, socially responsible, and designed for lasting impact.
Ideal for aspiring futures practitioners, innovation consultants, strategists, policymakers, and creative leaders, Design Futures prepares you to influence decision-making in organisations facing rapid technological, environmental, and societal change. Whether you are a recent graduate or an early-career professional from design, business, engineering, technology, or the social sciences, you will develop the confidence and capability to shape the future rather than simply respond to it.
Programme structure
The Design Innovation postgraduate programmes are built around a shared interdisciplinary learning experience, allowing you to develop specialist expertise while collaborating with students across Design Strategy, Design Futures, Service Design, and Regenerative Design.
In the first teaching block, you will build a lasting foundation through shared core units in systems thinking and participatory design, while beginning to develop expertise in your chosen programme through a specialist unit. This combination allows you to establish both a common design language and a distinctive disciplinary perspective from the very start of the programme.
In the second teaching block, your specialist knowledge deepens through advanced pathway-specific study while you continue to collaborate across disciplines. Personalise your learning with an elective from the Design Innovation portfolio, broadening your expertise with complementary approaches from another design discipline. Through live projects, studio-based activities, and industry-informed challenges, you will apply your learning to complex real-world problems while developing the confidence to lead in your chosen field.
The final teaching block centres on the interdisciplinary Design Innovation Project. Working as part of a multidisciplinary team, you will tackle a significant real-world challenge, combining your specialist expertise with perspectives from across the Design Innovation portfolio. This capstone experience reflects the collaborative nature of contemporary design practice and provides you with an opportunity to build a professional portfolio while working on challenges with genuine societal, organisational, or environmental impact.
Visit our programme catalogue for full details of the structure and unit content for our MSc in Design Futures.
Entry requirements
You will typically need an upper second class honours degree or an international equivalent in any discipline.
If you are currently completing a degree, we understand that your final grade may be higher than the interim grades or module/unit grades you have achieved during your studies to date.
We will consider your application if your interim grades are currently slightly lower than the programme's entry requirements and may make you an aspirational offer. This offer would be at the standard level, so you would need to achieve the standard entry requirements by the end of your degree.
We will also consider your application if your final overall achieved grade is slightly lower than the programme's entry requirement.
If your achieved grade is lower than our entry requirements, your application may be more likely to receive an offer if you have additional relevant work experience or qualifications. If you have at least one of the following, please include your CV (curriculum vitae / resume) when you apply, showing:
- six months paid or unpaid experience working in a formal position within any organisation or professional setting
- a relevant postgraduate qualification.
See international equivalent qualifications on the International Office website.
Read the programme admissions statement for important information on entry requirements, the application process and supporting documents required.
If English is not your first language, you will need to reach the requirements outlined in our profile level C.
Further information about English language requirements and profile levels.
Fees and funding
- Home: full-time
- £21,000 per year
- Overseas: full-time
- £37,700 per year
Fees are subject to an annual review. For programmes that last longer than one year, please budget for up to an 8% increase in fees each year.
More about tuition fees, living costs and financial support.
Alumni discount
University of Bristol students and graduates can benefit from a 25% reduction in tuition fees for postgraduate study. Check your eligibility for an alumni discount.
Funding and scholarships
Further information on funding for prospective UK and international postgraduate students.
Career prospects
Graduates are equipped to shape the future of organisations, industries, and society. Through expertise in strategic foresight, speculative design, systems thinking, and innovation, you will be prepared for careers in futures consultancy, innovation strategy, policy design, sustainability leadership, and organisational transformation, helping organisations navigate uncertainty and create resilient, responsible futures.