Abstract
In 2011 the Faculty of Design and Art, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, made a strategic decision to open its first Master level study programme. The author, a visual communication designer, and senior researcher Dr Alvise Mattozzi, a semiotician and sociologist, began laying the foundations for a new programme that would integrate ecologically, socially and politically engaged design practices with perspectives from the social sciences. As part of a strategy to inform the development of the programme in 2013 Alvise and I, together with the help of extremely committed students from the Faculty of Design & Art and also from other faculties, launched the first By Design or by Disaster (DoD) conference, a ‘hands-on conference’ as we called it. We brought together a mix of contributors and participants as we envisioned could contribute to the upcoming study course. This was a great learning experience for us, and at the same time, we started creating a network of people and institutions with an interest in learning from each other how to work towards the aims of the Master in Eco-Social Design outlined below. After six conferences and many other opportunities for exchange, the network consolidated and expanded in various ways, including Erasmus+ agreements with several study courses moving in the same direction.
The Master in Eco-Social Design started in the academic year 2015/16 after a long period of iteration and time to meet the requirements of the Italian higher education system. The programme can be described as a practice-oriented and transdisciplinary educational framework for designers that aim to contribute to more sustainable, resilient, less-alienated,just and equitable futures — both locally and trans-locally. The 2-year study course offers a broad range of opportunities for students to invent and co-develop creative and reflective practices, which contribute to the urgently needed eco-social transformations in ways that fit with their talents, potentials and desires individually and collectively.