About IDE

Industrial Design Engineering is one of the five master programmes organised by the faculty of Engineering Technology (ET). Like the programmes in Civil Engineering and Mechanical Engineering, the programme in Industrial Design Engineering is a continuation of the bachelor programme in Industrial Design Engineering and it allows students to do a specialisation within a sub-discipline within the domain.

The management team of the Faculty is advised by the Faculty Council. The council has the right of consent on certain issues regarding research, education and finance. In practice the council protects the interests of staff and students of the Faculty. The council consists of five staff and five student members.

The IDE Master’s programme is academically focused, with the emphasis on design methodologies and problem-solving strategies underpinned by a solid theoretical foundation. Therefore, extending and reinforcing the understanding of design principles, theoretical concepts, and the relation between products and product development processes is a deliberate goal of the Master’s programme.

The Master’s programme focuses on the field of Industrial Design Engineering from three different perspectives, which are translated into three different Master tracks. Whereas some overlap between the tracks is possible (and stimulated), students are encouraged to express their own accents by selecting a track and elective subjects.

The Master’s programme adopts an educational concept with a focus on autonomous study and the attitude this requires. As a consequence, the Master’s programme is an individualised programme in which the student has significant freedom of choice. The ability to discern, plan, prioritise, monitor, execute and evaluate work is assumed to be an implicit and obvious capability of a Master’s student. Consequently, many courses include design assignments related to realistic and topical challenges. Depending on the specifics of a course, these assignments are executed individually or by groups.

Traditionally, prospects for designers in the labour market have been closely linked to the overall economic situation. In times of a booming economy, jobs were offered to graduates even before they had completed the IDE programme. In a declining economy, it can take graduates one or two years to find a suitable job. However, the enormous potential of current new developments means that new industrial designers are likely to be in great demand. More and more governments and industry are convinced that innovation and smart design are set to play a very important role in future society. Also, the fact that the domain of Industrial Design is widening its scope (for example to services, product-service combinations, the design of environments, the management of product development, brand design), means that the domain could soon become less dependent on the state of the economic situation. So in the long run, the influence of design in society will increase, as will the demand for highly educated professionals in this field. IDE graduates are found in jobs such as industrial designer, product designer, product engineer, design engineer, design manager, product manager, interaction designer, researcher, usability consultant, design centered researcher, strategic designer, brand manager, New Product Development project leader, innovation consultant, design-brand consultant.