MSc in Project Management for Creative Practitioners
MSc
DURATION
2 years
LANGUAGES
English
PACE
Full time, Part time
APPLICATION DEADLINE
EARLIEST START DATE
TUITION FEES
GBP 21,800 / per year *
STUDY FORMAT
On-Campus
* International full-time study |£12,400: home full-time study. Additional fees may apply
Key Summary
You’ll study project, product and design management, build commercial and operational skills and develop a critical understanding of what it means to deliver value.
Studying this Project Management for Creative Practitioners MSc at Kingston University will equip you for a range of rewarding opportunities in industry. Recent graduates have gone on to work in everything from project management itself to creative freelancing and entrepreneurship.
Through a blend of theoretical and practical learning, you’ll gain skills in everything from entrepreneurship, funding and marketing to collaborative practice, resource management and risk assessment. You’ll also get to grips with agile work flow – crucial for successful creative practice in today’s landscape.
This programme offers opportunities to work with creative professionals from the art and design economy. You’ll even have the chance to complete an Agile Business Consortiums and APMG accredited Scrum Master certification.
During the course, you’ll benefit from tailored opportunities to develop your knowledge and skills. You’ll take part in designing projects and develop a portfolio of work in response to live briefs.
Part of the programme will also involve collaborating with key stakeholders or focusing on your own personal enterprise and development pathway to deliver a major project.
Why choose this course
While you study, you’ll benefit from top quality teaching at Kingston University. We are ranked Gold in the Teaching Excellence Framework, and our state-of-the art facilities create the perfect modern learning environment.
University museums and galleries
Kingston University has two on-site galleries, which offer exciting opportunities for career progression. Grade II-listed Dorich House is the former home of the sculptor Dora Gordine, while the Stanley Picker Gallery is one of the UK’s leading university galleries. Our Knights Park campus also has a bookable project space for large-scale exhibitions.
Workshops and studios
Explore, collaborate and share ideas in our state-of-the-art workshop facilities, designed by Stirling Prize-winning studio, Haworth Tompkins. Facilities are open to all Kingston University students, and include:
- 3D workshops, with spaces for ceramics, concrete, resin-casting, plastics, metalwork, woodwork, bronze-casting foundry, set design and large scale model making
- Animation and post-production studios
- A digital media workshop
- Knitting and sewing workshops with digital and analogue facilities, plus a working dress archive including from 1750 to the present day
- A HackSpace for collaborative, creative, solutions-focused projects
- A letterpress and printmaking workshop
- A moving image workshop, with studios, an editing suite and industry-standard equipment
- A fully-equipped photography workshop
The Art School Experience
As part of Kingston School of Art, students on this course benefit from joining a creative community where we encourage collaborative working and critical practice.
Our workshops and studios are open to all disciplines, enabling students and staff to work together, share ideas and explore multi-disciplinary making.
Funding support for postgraduate students
If you are a UK student living in England and under 60, you can apply for a loan to study for a postgraduate degree on the government's website.
Scholarships and bursaries
Interested in studying an MSc in Project Management for Creative Practitioners at Kingston? The following funding support is available:
- Inspire the Future Scholarship
- International scholarships
- Progression Scholarship
- Discounts for Kingston University alumni
The course is multi-disciplinary and practitioner-based. You will study with creative professionals and practitioners from across the creative practice (e.g. art and design) economy. Throughout your studies, the emphasis is on learning by doing/making/production/application: you'll develop a portfolio of projects, culminating with a substantive major project. You'll develop your project management skills relevant to creative practice, leading to a professional certification in Agile Project Management.
Incorporated in the curriculum are general transferable skills including team building, collaborative practice, resource and stakeholder management, risk assessment, legal strategy and budget management. The key application is agility in project management for creative sector projects. The focus is on understanding both the language of management and leadership relevant to creative practice environments. While this will include the 'hard' skills of budget management, scheduling and legal strategy, there will be an important focus on understanding qualitatively, people; cultural context(s); and, the meaning of project 'outputs' and 'success' factors.
Please note that, below is an indicative list of modules on this course. This is not intended as a definitive list. Those listed here may also be a mixture of core and optional modules.
Modules
You'll develop a pragmatic understanding of the political, social and economic contexts of project management for creative practice. Areas of study and practice include people management, communication management, process management and business case development.
You will study established project management techniques and approaches that will improve your ability to manage and lead creative projects. The course includes a module on freelancing as a creative practitioner, which develops skills of pitching, work flow management and basic accounting.
Core modules
- Principles of Project Management
- The Human Problem: Working with and Managing People
- Designing and Running Successful Projects
- The Creative Freelancer
- Major Project
Professional placement year
Many postgraduate courses at Kingston University allow students to do a 12-month work placement as part of their course. The responsibility for finding the work placement is with the student; we cannot guarantee the work placement, just the opportunity to undertake it.
As the work placement is an assessed part of the course, it is covered by a student's Student Route 4 visa.
Optional modules
- Professional Placement
After you graduate
You’ll complete this course with the skills you need to work as a project or design manager in the creative industry. Previous graduates have also progressed to roles such as producer, creative freelancer and entrepreneur.
Links with business and industry
You’ll have plenty of opportunities to work with creative organisations including agencies, studios, charities, competitions, award bodies and professional consultancies such as APMG and Scrum Inc. Not only do our professional practice links keep all course content relevant to today’s workplace, our staff are professional practitioners with experience across the creative industries.
Live project delivery
During the course, you’ll work closely with businesses and organisations to design and deliver a programme of events for your live project.