Master in Service Design
Milan, Italy
DURATION
1 Years
LANGUAGES
English
PACE
Full time
APPLICATION DEADLINE
27 Nov 2025
EARLIEST START DATE
Jan 2026
TUITION FEES
EUR 15,500 / per year
STUDY FORMAT
On-Campus
Key Summary
Introduction
The training course in Service Design is dedicated to the design of innovative and effective services and experiences in accordance with the transformations of business models.
The Specializing Master delivers an English teaching programme on service design employing a practical and learning-by-doing approach, based on modules that underline the design discipline, and on applied and cutting-edge contents. Students will acquire the fundamental competencies to understand people’s needs and behaviors, interpret changes within contemporary society, and design effective and efficient solutions, processes, and experiences.
The Master is supported by outstanding partners belonging both to the public and the private sector.
The last few years have challenged the world as never before, making us touch with our own hands what we previously had the chance to experience only through sci-fi movies; and disrupting, all of a sudden, our values, our habits, our vision of the future. But such turmoil has also proved that rapid, and sometimes even radical, innovation is possible, for both individuals and organizations. New standards of service are quickly taking over, paying attention to serious global-level problems, with more and more emphasis put on the impacts they could generate on the planet in the long term.
In the wake of the acknowledgment received in the last decade, service design is going to be confirmed as the crucial discipline of our times, thanks to an approach that has improved and evolved following the challenges and the needs of the economy and society. From design thinking to critical design, from a systemic to an ecosystemic perspective, from a human-centered point of view to behavioral transformation, a new service design era is arising, exploring new complexities and embedding into theory and practice further cross-disciplinary contaminations.
Created ten years ago in response to the growing demand for professionals capable of handling the complexity of services, the Specializing Master in Service Design by POLI.design – Politecnico di Milano is maintaining pace with the evolution of the discipline.
Following the changes that invest in business and society, the Master program, since its birth, is endowed with the mission of training professionals in the fascinating process of conceiving, developing, and delivering a service, fostering at the same time innovation culture, creative thinking, and cultural exchange.
Gallery
Rankings
- 1st in Italy
- 4th in Europe
- 8th in the World
Politecnico di Milano - QS Ranking 2023 in Art&Design category
Faculty
Program Outcome
The Specializing Master in Service Design is an international training program focused on a user-centered approach and the development of service ideas from contextual research to prototyping.
Thanks to a proven and sound methodology that mixes theoretical knowledge with hands-on experiences that are renovated every year, and are enriched by always new lectures on topics at the forefront, each Master edition awards a new generation of designers that soon go feeding the ranks of renown design agencies, consultancies, companies, as well as public organizations and research centers.
In order to strengthen the student’s abilities, the Master program relies on an educational model that merges the acquisition of broad and multifaceted methodological knowledge and a learning-by-doing approach through:
- multidisciplinary modules,
- experimental projects with real companies coordinated by international academics and professionals,
- user research, concept generation & development, service prototyping.
The objectives of the Specializing Master are:
- to provide the specific training required to refine the design skills of students who have already acquired experience in the design sector;
- to enhance the basic skills of students with a background in other disciplines by furnishing them with theoretical knowledge and practical experience in service design;
- to furnish the means necessary to enhance the professional experience of students already in employment.
At conclusion of the program, the participants will be able to:
- Devise systemic innovation models for services
- Deploy theoretical skills to operate with complex system
- Use specific service design tools and manage redesign
- Observe & analyze user experience to construct a user-centered vision of complex interactions
- Manage service conception, design and development
- Foster entrepreneurship
Career Opportunities
Numerous employment opportunities are available to graduates from the Specializing Master in Service Design. Potential roles include:
- Service designer as a specialized consultant at a design agency.
- Service designer as a consultant or employee of public-sector organizations, research centers, enterprises, and authorities.
- Service designer as a consultant or employee of private-sector organizations, research centers, companies, and organizations.
- Service designer as a freelance or self-employed professional (start-up).
Curriculum
Didactic Plan
The Specializing Master program grants 60 CFU (Formative University Credits) equivalent to 60 ECTS.
The capability to manage complexity and act upon different design levels and the capacity for creativity and vision are the main features of a service design professional.
These skills will be acquired through a highly experimental approach based on learning modules divided into lectures and design activities - called Service Design Pills, Service Masterclasses, Service Design Workshops - each one led by a different faculty member and focusing on a different topic.
Didactic Modules
The Master is now starting its twelfth edition with a renewed program that includes more than thirty learning modules, clustered into the following categories:
- Service Design Basics & Tools
- Emerging Service Culture
- Service Business & Management
- Future Studies, Systems Thinking & Sustainable Design
- Human-Centered Innovation & Participatory Futures
- Emerging Technologies & Digital Services
Program delivery
The didactic path is composed by different kinds of learning modules:
- Lectures: theoretical lessons aimed at providing the disciplinary background and introducing extra-disciplinary knowledge;
- Service Design Pills: short design sessions aimed at putting into practice methods and tools on a simulated design challenge;
- Service Design Masterclasses: advanced lectures provided by renown experts on cutting-edge topics emerging in the service design community;
- Service Design Workshops: biweekly design labs that cover all the phases of the service design process, from research to prototyping, experimenting on a real brief proposed by a partner company.
And the field experience, which can be:
- Curricular Internship: 475 hours of training experience in a partner company or other companies suggested by participants; or
- Professionalizing Project: a scientific research activity that involves the in-depth study of issues shared between the Student and the Master Board.
Admissions
Program Tuition Fee
Scholarships and Funding
EARLY BIRD: -10%
The promotion for those who have clear ideas, know which educational path can enrich their future, and can’t wait to get back to the classroom.
Deadline application: within April 30, 2025
Deadline for sending the signed contract and payment of the deposit of the participation fee: within May 15, 2025
FAMILY SUPPORT: -50%
A chance to gift your siblings the encouragement they need to invest in their future.
FRIEND TO FRIEND: -20%
An opportunity to gift to a friend to make education the foundation of their growth.
POLI.NETWORK: -50%
A promotion designed to strengthen the bond and identity among members of the Politecnico di Milano community.
BACK TO SCHOOL: -1000€ on Specializing Masters
The discount for those who have already trusted POLI.design and Polimi, and wish to return to study and build their future.