MA Design Innovation
- Study Mode: Full Time
- Location: High Wycombe
- Duration: One Year
- Start Date: September 2026
Take the next step in your career and become a pioneer with the fashion and textiles industry. Our MA Design Innovation is a cross collaborative programme for Fashion, Textiles, Costume and Communication designers and aims to extend innovation in your sector and become a creative problem solver in three core areas - digital futures, entrepreneurship, and sustainability.
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The creative world is full of exciting and rewarding opportunities. This course enables you to challenge or extend your professional practice to acknowledge and address core themes that the fashion and textile industry faces, making you a key member to any team for employers.
You’ll benefit from a close-knit community with your fellow students, working within a cross disciplinary cohort to explore interrelationships from global, national, and local perspectives.
With a history of delivery expert craft, art and design education for more than 130 years, Buckinghamshire New University is the perfect place to start your creative career in fashion innovation.
We are extremely proud to be able to offer industry-standard studios, technical machines and high-quality equipment to our fashion and textile-based courses.
You’ll be able to use traditional methods and digital software to innovate and bring your design ideas to life. This includes an in-house fabric and yarn store, screen printing facilities, a dye laboratory and sewing and garment production facilities.
In our professional-working studio you’ll have you own workspace which you’ll be able to turn into your own personal area, where you can bring your designs to life and surround yourself with inspiration.
We also have specialist technicians and demonstrators on site to support and share their knowledge with you, when and if you need it.
As well as this you may also have the chance to access to our photography studios where you’ll be able to work collaboratively with photography and hair and make-up students to build your portfolio, and network like you would in the industry.
This MA in Design Innovation is led by a dedicated and experienced course team, you’ll benefit from their industry knowledge and the industry links they bring to the course. You’ll get direct access to guest lectures, who are specialists in the sector, and can benefit from live project briefs, master classes, and networking opportunities.
As part of the College of Creative Arts, Technology and Engineering at BNU, you’ll benefit from a practiced-based course, supported by contextual studies. You’ll also have the opportunity to work collaboratively across the school with other courses, ensuring during your studies you are building a varied network, like you would in the real world.
Our fashion and textiles programmes are ranked 3rd best in the UK (The Guardian University Guide 2023).
Our students and graduates are also highly rated. Some of our student success includes winning a British Fashion Council scholarship, being shortlisted for Real Leather. Stay Different. International Design Competition, being a runner up for New Designers collaboration award with OPPO and being shortlisted for the Artsthread /Gucci award.
Our High Wycombe Campus is only a short train ride away from London, meaning you are only a stones-throw away from the hustle and bustle - enabling you to visit exhibitions, galleries, shows and watch emerging styles, to help you gain inspiration and ideas.
What will I study?
This design innovation ma degree aims to advance your knowledge in design industry practices. On this course we put a clear emphasis on producing professionals who can challenge current processes and drive mechanisms for positive change in the fashion and textile sector.
During your time with us you’ll become an independent thinker and a creative problem solver who can identify, lead, and extend innovation in your sector.
The modules within this course are aimed at providing professional designers and graduates across the fashion, textile, and fashion communication sector the opportunity to enhance your research knowledge and practice in parallel.
Whilst working to your individual strengths, interests, and future aspirations, you will initially complete rigorous investigation and experimentation across 3 key areas: Digital Futures, Entrepreneurship and Sustainability.
This course offers you the opportunity to identify and develop new products, processes, or ways of working to become a confident, creative, and motivated innovator of design. You’ll gain a broader awareness of global challenges from entrepreneurial, ethical, sustainable, or economic perspectives, to extend your intellectual, technical, and professional skills, with input from industry professionals.
Your individual topic of research will extend one of the themes into your practical capstone project which aligns to your final research dissertation and your career aspirations.
How will I be taught and assessed?
This MA Design Innovation degree encompasses a wide variety of teaching and learning methods. Projects are designed to present new challenges to you as you progress through the course.
The other assessment methods you will experience are:
- hybrid learning of practical and academic elements
- reflective and critically evaluative reports, sketchbooks, or artefacts
- research portfolio
- lecturers and seminars
- presentations
- self-evaluation
- dissertation
Self and peer feedback during regular group and individual discussions is an essential element in the growth of ideas and practical development. Students will be expected, during critiques and other discussions, to display a critical and reflective approach to their own work.
What are the course entry requirements?
A typical applicant will have a degree or related experience in the field of Fashion, Textile, Costume Design or Fashion Communication. Students will be asked to submit an on-line portfolio of evidence to support their application and applications are welcome from candidates who do not hold formal higher qualifications but can show their prior experience through a portfolio and relevant industry experience.
Students will be required to work to a high level in both project development and design plus academic work. We welcome applicants from a range of backgrounds and experiences, including international applicants with an interest in design innovation within their sector.
Modules
This provides a guide of the modules that make up your course. You can find more information about how your course is structured on our Academic Advice section.
What are the tuition fees
Home
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Home, Academic Year 2026 - 2027: £11,420 *
International
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Overseas/International, Academic Year 2026 - 2027: £16,280 *
Please note all of the 2026/27 academic year fees stated are subject to parliamentary procedure. Tuition fees are expected to increase each academic year in line with the maximum permitted value set by the Government for that academic year. The expected rise for Home undergraduate students (including those on a foundation year course), may impact both new and continuing students.
What are my career prospects?
After graduating from this Postgraduate degree, you will leave with the skills and knowledge to be a critically aware and logical thinking professional that understands existing and emerging forms of new technologies and ways of working to lead design innovation across the fashion and textile sectors.
As a hybrid professional with an awareness of how interaction with other disciplines can drive innovation, you may find yourself in several different roles such as;
- Trend Analysis
- Sustainability Advisor
- Intrapreneur – product developer
- Research & Developer for fibres or product
- AR Designer for film, stage or the metaverse
- Digital Platform designer for fashion
- Circular production analysis
Course leader
