Design School Kolding

Organisation profile

Organisation profile

Design School Kolding was established in 1967 and research accredited in 2010. We offer high quality BA, MA and PhD Degree Programmes with teaching based on innovative practice and research in close collaboration with the business community. Although the institution is quite small, with only 400 students enrolled per year, it is an internationally acclaimed design university where students work with tools, techniques, concepts and methods in an international academic setting and enjoy easy access to excellent workshop facilities. Our activities also include postgraduate courses and consultancy services.

Design for People, Planet, Play
We believe that the overall objective of any university should be to generate and transfer knowledge in ways that create value at many different levels of society. Our knowledge specifically intends to challenge and reinforce the fields of Industrial Design, Fashion Design, Textile Design, Accessory Design and Communication Design in a societal context by focusing on three strategic areas that we refer to as Design for People, Design for Planet, and Design for Play. This means we dedicate a large part of our MA Programme and our research and development activities to issues of sustainability, social design and play.

Partnerships and Reciprocity
We work hard to tear down the division between research and education and between education and business development. We do so by having an organisation that supports cross collaboration and sustains the nexus between knowledge production and teaching.

Under the framework of our three laboratories – the Lab for Sustainability and Design, the Lab for Social Design, and the Lab for Play and Design
– we direct our research and development activities towards helping develop and sustain our design programmes to make them relevant to the job market today and tomorrow. This means that the majority of the staff employed here contribute to the generation of new knowledge as well as to the day-to-day teaching. At the same time, we give priority to building strong partnerships with relevant companies and public institutions to ensure that our students are able to engage in unique learning environments and, equally, to create interesting collaboration possibilities for our researchers and developers. Research at Design School Kolding thus contributes to a better understanding of the important role design plays in the development of a society’s innovative dynamics. The school’s research supports the development of concepts and methods in design-led innovation processes in both the business community and the cultural scene, as well as in the public sector. The research is also important in the continuous changes to the knowledge base of design programmes.

Design School Kolding is dedicated to educating students who are able to help fulfil the UN Global Goals, and our commitment drives us to try to influence the global agenda and work to help small and medium-sized companies move towards a sustainable future.

Publication collaborations within the past 5 years.

Recent external collaboration on country/territory level. Dive into details by clicking on the dots or