Curriculum is one of the most influential tools in shaping a student's learning. The World Economic Forum's 2023 Future of Jobs report states that by 2030, nearly 40% of workplace skills will have changed due to the advancement of AI, the need for sustainability, and the use of big data.
UNESCO, in a recent web article, highlighted that fostering lifelong learning and interdisciplinary approaches is important for preparing students for the complexity of the future. As the world stands at this juncture of rapid technological, environmental, and societal changes, revisiting higher education across disciplines is urgent.
In this shifting context, the role of design schools around the world will completely change by 2030. The curriculum of most design programmes today is focused on outdated theoretical concepts and cases, promoting mastery of tools and techniques such as typography and sketching.
On the contrary, the demand for designers who can move beyond aesthetic solutions to design systems that address complex challenges is on the rise. The entire design industry, which once revolved around sketching, ergonomics, and prototyping, is adapting to give way to subjects like artificial intelligence, bio-design, extended reality (XR), robotics, and sustainability technologies, which are the new essentials in a creative curriculum.
Leading design schools around the world like MIT Media Lab (USA), L’École de design Nantes Atlantique (France), Parsons School of Design (USA), Royal College of Art (UK), Stanford d.school (USA), and The Design Village (India) are already taking big steps to adapt, and it is imperative that other design schools across the world follow this transition. The future d-school curriculum will need to adopt a new framework focused around:
Transdisciplinary Knowledge: For preparing designers to address the increasingly complex and interconnected challenges of the modern world, a transdisciplinary focus that integrates knowledge, methods, and perspectives from diverse fields such as technology, social sciences, environmental studies, and the arts is key to enabling designers to think beyond traditional design boundaries. It will also make designers aware and capable of collaborating with other professionals, navigating uncertainty, and co-creating meaningful futures.
Tech Collaboration: Global design colleges need to incorporate technology into their curriculum, such as Artificial Intelligence (understanding generative AI, algorithmic limits, and ethical risks), Big Data (using big data to inform design decisions and evaluate impact), Metaverse (leveraging AR, VR, and XR for immersive prototyping and experiential storytelling), and Robotics (understanding technology and designing interactions for adaptive systems, wearables, and responsive environments).
Ethics and Policy: With the rapid transformation of the creative industry and recognition of the design process in non-creative industries, design schools will need to institutionalize courses that cover IP rights, legal implications of creative work, policy-sensitive design, ethical literacy, etc.
New Material & Fabrication Practices: By 2030, design schools will have to shift the focus of their regular material and prototyping courses to circular materials, computational fabrication, net-zero prototyping, and embedding sustainability metrics. Future courses will need to emphasize both ‘creative’ and ‘critical’ lenses, where students test ideas and explore material behavior but also understand the ecological, ethical, and technological implications of production.
Design schools need to rethink their education for preparing future designers: they need to educate designers who can play a critical role in shaping ethical technology, sustainable economies, and inclusive societies—designers who can think as artists, anthropologists, and scientists at the same time. Only when global d-schools embrace this expanded role of designers will the world be able to leverage the potential of design.
Sagar Gupta, Director (Growth), The Design Village