The Futures Through Design short course at the Royal College of Art encourages students to use specific methodologies to develop innovative opportunities for their organisation, industry sector or community.

Struggling to navigate complexity or see beyond the immediate horizon? This short course at the world's leading university for art and design will equip you with a robust set of design futures methods to transform strategic uncertainty into innovative opportunities for your organisation, industry sector or community.

Led by expert practitioners from the Royal College of Art's renowned design futures faculty, the course builds on over a decade of pioneering research and practice. It offers an intensive experience for organisational leaders, entrepreneurs and professionals seeking to drive transformative change.

Over three days, you will learn advanced design methodologies to anticipate and map complex future scenarios, use hands-on futures thinking tools to generate novel insights, and develop new approaches to strategic innovation that can be immediately applied in your professional context.

The Royal College of Art views design futures not as a prediction, but as a creative and rigorous practice. This course provides the frameworks to turn future speculation into present-day value.

School: Royal College of Art
Course: Futures Through Design
Type: Short course
Location: London, UK
Course dates: 25, 26 and 27 March 2026
Application deadline: 15 March 2026

Find out more about the course and apply ›

What will I learn during this course?

– An end-to-end toolkit for navigating uncertainty and translating insights into actionable, organisational strategies
– Comprehensive understanding of design thinking applied to various business challenges
– A new model for reframing innovation projects through a design lens
– Experience in collaborative problem-solving and innovation
– Enhanced critical, creative, and insightful thinking skills
– Improved ideation and visualisation skills for realising design innovations
– Deeper empathic understanding of users and their needs
– Valuable networking opportunities with peers from diverse backgrounds
– A custom toolkit to help communicate learnings with your organisation

What are the requirements?

– An undergraduate degree/professional experience
– A good level of the English language
– 21 years old or over

What facilities and resources are available?

– Participants will have access to workshop materials during the day

What career prospects can I expect upon graduating?

The course is particularly valuable for leaders in rapidly changing sectors seeking to develop resilience, innovation capacity and strategic foresight. It is also open to graduates and designers who want to learn or update their knowledge about design futures work and its impact.

We encourage participants from all backgrounds but this course could be particularly valuable for people from the following professions:

– Innovation and strategy directors
– Business development and transformation leaders
– Design and creative directors
– Policy and planning directors
– Senior management consultants
– R&D and foresight managers

Who teaches this course?

– Rob Phillips, senior tutor design products MA
– John V Willshire, founder of Smithery Ltd
– Gem Barton, senior tutor of superFUTURES platform and reader in design pedagogy interior design MA

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