Design Informatics creates a meeting point between data, culture and design. We imagine alternate futures, disrupt thinking and play with data as a material.

Our practice is experimental, speculative and critical, informed through research and industry. We create inquisitive, professional and articulate problem solvers and entrepreneurs as graduates, leading applied data-driven futures with a global reach.

We focus on making physical and digital artefacts and experimental data things that explore the role of data-driven technologies as social good. You are supported to develop an ethically aware, critically reflective, creative and technical practice at the interface between data and society by combining theory and research with an open-ended process of making and hacking. We build, test, hack and reinterpret what data means to society, and where design has opportunity to shape future thinking for challenge led inquiries. 

Design Informatics sits within the Institute of Design Informatics and is informed by research practice and industry partnerships across Edinburgh College of Art and School of Informatics.

To find out more about this course, visit our Degree Finder: Design Informatics.

Our students often progress to further study or research study with many of our students progressing to PhD locally or internationally.

Many students take on roles in large organisations where their approach to innovation and working knowledge of design and data-science are sought after in industry.

A growing proportion of students are interested in starting businesses, or further commercialising products, teams or ideas developed as part of Design Informatics study.

Students are regularly invited to join in wider Institute of Design Informatics research and innovation events to help prepare them for roles after graduation.

This programme will enable you to engage across a wide range of fields that exploit the intersection between:

• data science
• design
• information technology
• experience and immersive design
• programmable matter.

The programme will open a host of opportunities in working with:

• companies
• charities
• the public sector.

For those who wish to stay in academia, the course provides a solid foundation for a PhD in related areas.

We actively encourage entrepreneurship.

If you'd like to study on a postgraduate programme at Edinburgh College of Art, you must apply through EUCLID, our online application system. You can find out how to do this on the University of Edinburgh website, where you'll also be able to:

• see detailed entrance requirements for each programme on the Degree Finder
• get information on what to expect after you apply
• find out about study modes, start dates and fees
• find out if, and how, you need to submit a portfolio, showreel or research proposal
• find out where to go for further advice and guidance.