Design For Social Impact
Key concepts and holistic tools in design for social change from a critical and contextualized perspective.
Barcelona
ESP
Summer Course - Advance Level
Language
Spanish
Start date
July 2026
Frequency
Part-time
Fruition
On campus
Duration
3 Weeks
Price
A dynamic learning process focused on the co-creation of a practical project linked to the social reality of Barcelona.
The Summer Course in Design for Social Impact is a 3-week immersion course into the fundamentals of sustainable design where you’ll learn to use all the tools you need to develop social innovation proposals.
In this course you’ll commit to playing a critical role in design to help build a fairer and more sustainable world. More than just aesthetics or functionality, you’ll acquire a deep understanding of social problems, their roots and interrelations, adopting empathy and creativity to find solutions to these same problems.
The course addresses this dimension of the discipline in the development of a small project based on a specific topic in the context of Barcelona.
You’ll co-create with others, go on out of class visits, and also collaborate with professionals, entities and groups in the social field.
Information to decide
A dynamic learning experience developing innovative projects using co-creation, in direct collaboration with social stakeholders from Barcelona.
The goal of the course is to develop a final project that offers a solution with a social impact, stimulating a critical debate about our reality.
The course is structured in three phases: the presentation of the challenge; visits and contact with social stakeholders, development of a prototype to apply what you’ve learned throughout the course.
- People with a degree or diploma in any field of Design, Business Administration or Marketing and Communication.
- Entrepreneurs in the fashion sector looking for a new, more sustainable approach for their production processes, techniques and methodologies.
- Professionals with proven experience in the field of design or business management, sustainability, CSR, communication or marketing who want to take their professional development to the next level.
- People who want to enter this field of design with a view to completing their Master's Degree in Sustainable Design and Social Impact
This course meets the growing need to develop projects with a positive social impact in a context of constant evolution, which is why the know-how acquired is extremely useful in a number of different fields and for various professional profiles.
The duration and format of the course gives you a quick immersion in the ecosystem of this field of design, so you can acquire the basics and tools needed to co-create a project related to the social reality of Barcelona.
What’s more, the cooperative nature of the course helps you develop soft skills (empathy, communication, active listening, etc.) and connect with the origins of this dimension of design rooted in activism and protest.
Direct contact with professionals working in the sector, by analysing sustainable social entrepreneurship business models and through direct collaboration with social stakeholders, is another of the strengths of this course.
Syllabus
Phase 1: One-to-One
Presentation of the challenge During the first week you’ll acquire the theoretical and conceptual foundations to address the problem.
Phase 2: One in context
The second week includes visits in context and contact with the communities and stakeholders involved, to present the area the project will focus on and consider possible courses of action.
Phase 3: Together in the community
During the final phase, co-creation and cooperative tools are used and a prototype is developed putting the know-how you’ve acquired to good use.
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