Master of Science in Industrial Design Engineering Technology
The Industrial Design Engineering Technology (Kortrijk Campus) is unique in Flanders. Our graduates are ‘architects’ of new products and systems of the future with an eye for new social and technological trends and a talent for surprising the world with their ingenious creativity.
What
Successful completion of the Bachelor’s programme grants immediate access to the Master's programme of Industrial Design Engineering Technology. The curriculum offers a further specialization into the same technological discipline, which then culminates into the Master's dissertation. Successful completion of the Master’s programme will result in a Master’s degree and the title of ‘Industrieel Ingenieur’
Remarks
UNIQUE IN FLANDERS
The Master of Science in Industrial Design Engineering Technology is unique in Flanders.
For whom
The admission requirements vary. Depending on your prior education, you are either able to enrol directly, or there are additional requirements.
Structure
Our graduates’ main field of activity is the creation, development and realization of new products or services, or the innovation of existing products. We deliver polyvalent engineers who introduce, strengthen or stimulate technological innovation in a business. Our graduates are able to think about a product - design, choice of materials, technology, production process, ... - in a cross-disciplinary and conceptual manner, while also charting the interaction between product and human and acting accordingly. They do so with a sense of creativity and methodology. After acquiring the necessary competencies to develop products in a creative and methodological manner (‘making the things right’) in the Bachelor’s programme, you learn to develop products, processes and services aimed at a translation of technological innovation into design solutions with an added value for all stakeholders (‘making the right things’) in the Master's programme.
Your competencies at Master’s level are situated in the field of integral product development, systems-oriented and sustainable design, innovation-oriented entrepreneurship, modelling and styling, design-oriented research and a further professional development. A graduate of the Industrial Design Engineering Technology is able to:
- investigate every aspect of industrial design in a systematic manner by means of materialized design solutions in order to examine the behaviour of products and systems;
- deal with change, and use or steer that change as an added value in the development process;
- take on leadership of an innovation project;
- manage all company processes with a sense of entrepreneurship and pluck, all the while adopting a design-oriented and exploratory attitude;
- develop a product vision in a real-life business context;
Throughout the programme you develop various projects in collaboration with and/or commissioned by companies. This ensures that you are at all times working on exiting and specific cases. Feedback on your project is delivered directly by the professional field. Among our regular collaborators are Bekeart, Beaulieu, CNH, Curana, Deceuninck Plastics, Extremis, Glimps, Honda, Kalkhoff, Philips, Pili Pili, Recticel, Ridley bikes, Samsonite, Sioen Industries, Sirris, TEN Engineering, Televic, Twikit, Umbrosa, UZ Gent, Volvo, Procter & Gamble, Daikin, Materialise, Niko, Renson, Thule, Tupperware ...
Our work placement and graduation projects take place at SMEs and multinationals in Flanders and beyond. We occasionally plan company visits or fairs. All Master's students are given the opportunity to participate in international study trips, during which we pay company visits but also embark on a cultural exploration of the destination country.
Throughout the Master’s curriculum we focus heavily on entrepreneurship and marketing. You will even be asked to set up your own fictional enterprise. Ghent University’s DO! is the ideal partner to take the additional step towards an actual enterprise. (Centre for Entrepreneurship). The Master’s curriculum also offers a wide range of electives to broaden your perspective on the world, or to study your Master's dissertation topic in a more in-depth manner. The Master's dissertation is proof that you are able to translate a research question into a product design in an industrial context.
Labour Market
Companies are often on the lookout for creative engineers who can use new ideas to create products that are in line with the prevailing market. This makes for a wide range of career opportunities for our graduates. They find employment in a variety of sectors and positions. A few examples are the interior design, wood, lighting, furniture, automobile and transportation sectors, as well as the CAD/CAM, electronics, machine construction or multimedia design sectors; engineering and design bureaus, consumer goods, plastics, mould-making and stand-building, the education sector and research centres. Positions that are open to you are: Self-employed designer, design engineer, CAD engineer, service engineer, R&D engineer, product developer, technical-commercial staff, production manager, mechanical designer, technical writer, company or project leader.
More information is available at www.ugent.be/campus-kortrijk/nl/opleidingen/industrieel-ontwerpen/overzicht.htm#Jobs.
Quality Assurance
At Ghent University, we strive to educate people who dare to think about the challenges of tomorrow. For that purpose, we provide education that is embedded in six strategic objectives: Think Broadly, Keep Researching, Cultivate Talent, Contribute, Extend Horizons, Opt for Quality.
Ghent University continuously focuses on quality assurance and quality culture. The Ghent University's quality assurance system offers information on each study programme’s unique selling points, and on its strengths and weaknesses with regard to quality assurance.
More information:
Unique Selling Points
- Multiperspectivism: we train our students into becoming critical professionals with the ability to work as a team and with the necessary skills to work creatively and in a problem-solving manner. Throughout the programme our students collaborate to a great extent with students and lecturers from other programmes. This allows them to hone their critical thought and to learn to collaborate in a multidisciplinary context.
- We are unique in Flanders and offer our students a unique learning environment. This learning environment is a stimulant for students to learn to design in an independent and critical manner. We place specific emphasis on learning by design and materializing. The Industrial Design Centre at Kortrijk Campus offers a suitable design infrastructure, Which is in turn part of the Ghent Design Factory. Together with locations such as The Foundry, De Krook and the P3Lab, our Industrial Design Centre is an ideal habitat for creative, designing and entrepreneurial innovation.
- Our application-oriented curriculum and strong ties with the industry allow students to work - either independently or in group - on various design assignments in close collaboration with that industry. Our programme is application-oriented. More than 80% of our Master's dissertations come into being in collaboration with an industrial partner. Thanks to our solid alumni outreach and close ties with organization such as the Kortrijk Design Region and VOKA we are clearly embedded in the local industry.
- Creative and entrepreneurial: we encourage our students to design in an insecure and creative context. In addition to the specific learning pathway on entrepreneurship, there are also clear entrepreneurial accents in the other learning pathways.
- Integration of theory and practice: our curriculum contains many hours of tutorials and practicals, during which we use our well-equipped lab space and practical classrooms to apply the theoretical knowledge covered in the lectures. Students have at their disposal well-equipped studios and state-of-the-art equipment for their project work and development of prototypes.
Strengths
- Preparation and student counselling: we offer summer courses and introduction days so that our students can start the programme well-prepared. We invest in personal, high-quality student support through our mentors and coaches.
- Motivated lecturers: our programme boasts a group of motivated lecturers from various disciplines who combine their research expertise with a passion for teaching and a continued enthusiasm for the quality of their lectures. Our small-scale campus and specific didactic methods (projects and concomitant coaching) contribute to our lecturers’ approachability and interaction with the students.
- Enthusiastic and motivated students: students of Industrial Design Engineering Technology are typically highly entrepreneurial. We strengthen that entrepreneurial spirit by means of our practice-oriented and project-based teaching methods, our collaboration with the industry and a passion for industrial design. Our students often participate in (international) challenges and are offered the opportunity to go to international conferences.
- Interdisciplinary research by means of iterative design: design solutions do not come into existence by means of paperwork or computer work alone. They are realized in various iterative steps. At each iterative step, we build prototypes and test them from various disciplines and perspectives in order to steer the design process (research through design).
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Stakeholder Involvement: our Programme Committee ensures an open dialogue and debate with all lecturers and student representatives. The Industrial Advisory Board ensures the involvement of the professional field and of alumni. Our annual focus group discussions with students are a means to monitor programme density and sequentiality.
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Transparent Assessment: in recent years we have invested heavily in more transparent and objective assessment of project-based work. We combine clear agreements at the start of term with the use of rubrics as a guideline for assessment.
Challenges
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International exchange: there is room for improvement in terms of student and staff mobility. Spending a term abroad is currently only possible in the third Bachelor. We are working on solutions to make international mobility possible in the confines of a one-year Master's programme.
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International Programme Review: our programme has ample assets to put itself on the map. The broadening the external perspective on our programme by consulting international study programmes is an undeniable asset in terms of curriculum design as well as international mobility.
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Organizing distance teaching in a practice-oriented study programme: we want to develop and maintain our good practices on distance teaching of practicals and projects further to make it accessible for e.g. students working their way through college.
This study programme is accredited by the Accreditation Organization of the Netherlands and Flanders (Dutch: NVAO). Accreditation was extended following the positive outcome of the institutional review in 2022. Programme quality was validated by a quality review, i.e. a screening of the Education Monitor by the Education Quality Board. The Quality Assurance Resolution (in Dutch) can be found here.
This information was last updated on 14/02/2023.
In case of questions or suggestions with regard to the publicly available information, please contact the study programme.