School/Unit: Creative Futures Academy
Post Title & Subject Area: Part-Time Lecturer - Design for Transformation
Total Hours: 150 part-time hours
Rate of Pay: €65.85 per hour, NCAD Part-Time Lecturer Hourly Rate
Location: Fully online and/or occasional on-campus workshops and activities
Please outline your interests in the work, professional practice and any other relevant experience in your application.
NCAD seeks to commission the research, design, and delivery of a CFA Creative Futures 2 Module as an elective in Studio + (3rd year) and an L9 Professional Certificate in Design for Transformation (comprised of 1 x 5 credit L9 module) that will also form part of the wider curriculum of the Creative Futures Academy offered by the College.
CFA
The Creative Futures Academy (details here) provides opportunities for postgraduate students and professionals to undertake focused learning, usually in concentrated or short-format courses and often scheduled in ways that allow part-time study to be combined flexibly with professional practice.
The Creative Futures 2 Elective- Design for Transformation L8 (5-credit module) will be offered to studio+ 3rd year learners in Spring Trimester 2 of the 2025/26 academic year.
The Professional Certificate in Design for Transformation L9 (5-credit programme) will be offered to prospective learners in Autumn Trimester 1 of the 2026/27 academic year.
Design for Transformation
The Design for Transformation courses (a BA elective and a Prof Certificate) will seek to enable learners to explore the capacity of design as a critical and collaborative agent of social, cultural and economic change. The course will seek to position design as a creative forum for exploring a dynamic, changing world full of critical, contradictory and provocative ideas. It will ask participants to consider the potential impact of design on a range of contemporary commercial, social and cultural issues.
Equal emphasis will be placed on critical thinking and critical making. Participants will explore speculative, fictional, discursive and impact-led design methodologies, equipping them with the skills required to provoke meaningful change.
The UG Creative Futures elective module seek to empower creative practitioners from a range of disciplines, with the sustainable and adaptable skills and attributes that they will require to shape the future of Ireland’s creative sector.
Learners on the professional certificate will engage in structured, experimental learning through thematic projects, which provide a petri dish for problem exploration through radical interpretations of a design studio. Learners will examine the role of the designer in the 21st century in relation to critical issues, and incubate and grow their own concepts. The course will engage a combination of faculty, industry and external stakeholders in the development and delivery of projects that aim to test understanding of a preferable future.
Task 1: Development & Delivery: 78 hours
Studio + CFA Elective Creative Futures
Research, design, and delivery of a CFA Creative Futures 2 Module, Studio + Elective.
CFA Creative Futures
This module will be delivered to 3rd-year undergraduate students as an L8 CFA elective in Spring Trimester 2 of the academic year 2025/26.
Estimated Student Effort Hours: 100hrs structured learning
Staff Delivery Hours: 78 hours broken down into the following components:
24 hours Development
42 hours Teaching - half day per week for 10 weeks.
12 hours Assessment
Period: Spring Trimester 2 in academic year 2025/26 - (Jan 2026)
Cohort: L8, 25-30 students per elective option (cross-college art and design, including incoming Erasmus students)
Review of the module - The findings will inform the content of the Professional Certificate.
Completion date
Research and curriculum design needs to be completed no later than December 19th, 2026. Module Delivery January - May 2026.
The Professional Certificate in Design for Transformation
Task 2: Development: 35 hours
Research, design a L9 Professional Certificate in Design for Transformation (comprising 1 x 5 credit L9 module) that will also form part of the wider curriculum of the Creative Futures Academy offered by the College.
Stage 1 – Professional Certificate
Design Principles - Design for Transformation
Development: 35 hours
Timeline: August - December 2026
Research existing courses offered by other institutions (nationally and internationally) - in terms of publicity, content, and format.
Curriculum design - the preparation of teaching materials. This will include summary outlines of briefs/lectures / seminars / workshops; reading lists and/or other useful resources which can be shared with learners both before and after the course runs; proposals of guest speakers; technical and specialist training exercises as well as expected deliverables/assignments to be completed at the end of each module. It will be essential to secure early agreement from the NCAD / CFA Academic Development team for the proposed content of the module.
Authorship of publicity texts and sourcing visual material which can be used to promote the Professional certificate using the CFA’s communication channels. Visual material will need to be copyright free / cleared.
Expected learner profile
Current students registered at NCAD or other HEIs, designers, architects, artists, curators, makers, educators and possibly other professionals working in the creative industries.
While CFA courses are professional learning opportunities, learners will not need to demonstrate high levels of professional/academic achievement at the time of application.
Some learners may undertake CFA learning as a means of ongoing professional development, often with the support of their employers.
Completion date
This work (research and curriculum design) needs to be completed for validation no later than December 19th, 2026.
The Professional Certificate in Design for Transformation
Timeline: September - December 2026
Task 3: Delivery: 37 hours - Autumn Trimester 1 of the 2026/27 academic year.
Stage 1 – Professional Certificate
Design Principles - Design for Transformation
Teaching - 20 contact hours
Student Learning - 100 Hours
Assessment, Administration, and Case Study Report - 17 hours
Course format
The 5-credit course content is to be delivered to 12-25 learners.
- It will be designed to be delivered in a range of potential formats, including
- hybrid and or fully remote, in which learners can fully participate at a distance
- in collaboration with industry partners.
Active learning and collaborative peer learning are strongly encouraged to reflect the professional experience and ambitions of CFA learners.
The modules/programme may include one or two high-profile guest speakers, but we expect a lead tutor or a team of tutors to teach and coordinate the majority of the content.
The NCAD / CFA Academic Development team will provide a series of templates which will provide different possible learning formats (such as an intensive one or two week workshop, a day symposium, or a weekly 3-hour class etc). The person/s /s undertaking this work will also be supported by a member of the NCAD / CFA Academic Development team who can provide feedback during the research and design of the course.
Payment
The person (s) commissioned to undertake this work will be paid.
Task 1: Development & Delivery: 78 hours
Review of the module
Task 2: Development: 35 hours
Task 3: Delivery: 37 hours
Completion date
Delivery to be completed by Autumn Trimester 1 of the 2026/27 academic year.
In the case of existing NCAD EPL/FT staff, backfill hours will be available to release the time required.
If you have any queries, please contact Bernie McCoy [email protected]
