Innovation and Future Thinking | © Proyecto:  Waiting Journey. Estudiante:  Emma Krejberg Bak

Language

English

Start date

July 2026

Frequency

Part-time

Fruition

On campus

Duration

2 Weeks

Course Coordination

Meri Sahade , Uri Casademont

Develop strategic thinking to acquire foresight; comprehend, plan and create solutions in a context of rapid and constant change.

 

In this Summer Course in Innovation and Future Thinking, you’ll be detecting signs of change, organising ideas into comprehensible models, finding new ways to assess possible futures, identifying potential barriers and opportunities, designing innovative ideas, products and services.

This course, taught in English, focuses on the strategic, innovative and creative aspects of future thinking. You’ll start with data collection and modelling, explore and adopt narrative development, strategic foresight, prototyping, and find out how to effectively inform users about new products and services. This new know-how will be put to good use in the form of a final project providing solutions for the problems found.

 

Information to decide

A course, taught in English, to acquire the methodologies and tools you need to identify and evaluate signs of change, proposing innovative solutions for future thinking.

 

Starting from the question, "Why think about the future?" you’ll discover the fundamental concepts of futuring from a theoretical perspective. In this first part of the course you’ll focus on trend identification and analysis, watching out for weak signs and macro trends. This phase is characterised by an observational analysis of urban environments.

The focus then shifts to creating scenarios, roadmaps and timelines, using retrospection and creative ideas to develop new narratives. Futurists, innovators and designers will show us how to use these techniques to put theory into practice.

You’ll study innovation practices and processes and see how they’re used by both major companies and start-ups.

To finish the course in style you’ll develop a final project to provide long-term solutions for the problems found.

The Summer Course in Innovation and Future Thinking is for students and professionals from a variety of fields and backgrounds with one thing in common: a healthy interest in innovation and creative thinking.

People looking for new ways to create products, services and business concepts will find the course both interesting and useful with its mix of strategic business vision and product design development.

If you want to combine creative skills with a rigorous approach to thinking, this course is a great place to start.

In this course you’ll develop new forecasting skills and acquire the techniques and tools you need to detect change, as well as an understanding of the dynamics of change in modern society.

 

After this course you’ll be developing concepts, services and products with greater foresight and a strategic new look. You’ll also consolidate your teamwork skills and share ideas using sector-specific language. 

It’s a course, taught in English, with a strong international focus for students from a wide range of backgrounds and a variety of profiles that is sure to enrich your learning experience.

You’ll be studying in Barcelona, a benchmark in the world of design and innovation. Two weeks in a city that leads the field in terms of observational analysis. The city itself will be your case study as you search for and find indicators, behaviours, messages and signs for predicting change. 

Syllabus

LEARNING PHASE

CONNECTION PHASE

CREATION PHASE

Faculty

Course Coordinator

Meri Sahade

Future Days Co-founder & Creative Director

Course Coordinator

Uri Casademont

Future Days Founder & Executive Director

Teacher

John Willshire

Strategic designer and futures expert

Teacher

Christina Bifano

Designer, educator, researcher

Teacher

Manuela Procopio

Service Designer and Digital Design Specialist

News

09 June 2026

Creativity in motion: the IED.60 Public Programme gets underway

June marks a special moment for IED: the Public Program IED.60 is in full swing, with a rich calendar of events spanning fashion, design, illustration and visual arts, bringing talks, exhibitions and open events to Milan, Rome, Florence and New York for the IED community and the wider public.

08 June 2026

IED among the Top Design Schools 2026 according to Calibre Careers: european Network, industry connections and educational excellence

The international careers observatory analyses the Institute’s educational model, combining global recognition with the historic pillars of hands-on, laboratory-based teaching.

28 May 2026

IED Barcelona Undergraduate Graduation Ceremony 2026

It will take place on Thursday, 18 June at 4:45 pm at Paral·lel 62 theatre.

21 May 2026

IED AHEAD - Design your tomorrow, today.

Enrol by 31 July 2026 and get an exclusive 20% discount on tuition fees for Undergraduate and Foundation Courses starting in September, October and November 2027.

21 May 2026

New Business Strategies through Design for VIBIA

Students from the BA (Hons) in Business Design at IED Barcelona have presented their final projects featuring innovative proposals aimed at imagining new ways of understanding lighting in the hybrid spaces of the future.

“TypoLAB”, del alumno Gonzalo Muñoz, premiado en los Young Ones Student Awards

13 May 2026

“TypoLAB,” by student Gonzalo Muñoz, wins an award at the Young Ones Student Awards

This student's project for the Bachelor's Degree in Graphic Design has been awarded a Student Merit

11 May 2026

Design tells its story at the Turin International Book Fair with EDICOLA IED

From 14 to 18 May, a newsstand of creativity presented the first two issues of Notes on Plural Intelligences alongside a selection of the best Italian and international magazines, accompanied by a programme of talks and workshops that explored themes of design, publishing and contemporary communication.

11 May 2026

HYPER FUTURES: Designing Beyond Capitalism Through Speculative Artefacts

Students from the Master’s in Digital Product Design and the Master’s in Textile Design and New Materials at IED Madrid presented the outcomes of an experimental lab that used design as a tool to imagine alternative futures.

07 May 2026

IED.60 Public Program - May: between Plural Intelligences and the culture of design

The programme of IED events open to both the internal and external communities continues in may; it was launched to mark the 60th anniversary as a collective reflection on the role of design.