Master in Creativity and Design Leadership

The MA in Creativity and Design Leadership brings together leadership, design and creativity in an integrated way to grow your leadership skills and your capacity to drive results in the creative sector. This master is taught in Madrid.

How to apply

Basic data

Title

Master’s Degree in Creativity and Design Leadership. Degree issuedy by UVic-UCC.

Director

Christer Windeløv-Lidzélius, Magdalena Herrador

ECTS credits

Academic period

September – July

Language

English

Tuition

September 25: €13,250 (+€500 pre-registration)

Campus

Madrid

Presentation

The Master in Creativity and Design leadership invites you on a transformative journey where you’ll develop nuanced self-awareness as a leader and gain the skills needed to navigate the complex and important intersection of creativity, design, and leadership. Recognizing that creativity, design and leadership fuel change and innovation across industries, the master draws on a variety of bodies of knowledge around how creativity and design approaches can be understood, developed, and applied.

Modern forms of leadership, such as adaptive leadership, complexity leadership and creative leadership framework, are seen as keys to unlock the potential in people and today’s organisations as to solve problems and co-create new futures. But this is not just a program about creativity, design, and leadership, it is a journey of self-discovery and capacity building, where you examine your own attitudes, knowledge and skills, and further qualities to transform your career and worldview.

We believe that creativity, design, and leadership intricately weave the fabric of the creative industries and, consequently, the world. Our curriculum nurtures your ability to lead, inspires creative thinking, and sharpens your design skills. The resulting synergy equips you to lead with vision, navigate complexity, and drive results in the ever-evolving global creative landscape.

Elisava counts on a large offer of master and postgraduate programmes. Discover the design master you are looking for.

Objectives

To foster creative thinking and problem-solving skills in students, preparing them to innovate in various creative industries.
To equip students with a deep understanding of design principles and user-centered design.
To develop leadership skills, including effective communication, decision-making, and team management.
To promote ethical and sustainable design practices, making graduates responsible stewards of the environment.
To cultivate a global perspective, enabling students to work in international creative markets.
To prepare students for leadership in the digital age, where technology is transforming creative industries.
To help students assess and develop their personal leadership style and capabilities.
To provide hands-on experience through a capstone project, allowing students to apply their knowledge to real-world challenges.
To foster collaboration with industry professionals, ensuring students are exposed to current trends and practical insights.
To enable graduates to pursue diverse career paths and make a positive impact on the creative sectors and society at large.

Programme of the MA in Creativity and Design Leadership

1 Creativity, design, and imagination

The fundamental concepts of imagination, creativity, and design in the context of business transformation, society, and sustainability.

2 Leadership development and self-awareness

Personal growth, self-awareness, and leadership development, providing participants with the skills and insights necessary for leading others.

3 Building and leading a creative culture and leading design processes

Strategies and practices to build, lead and nurture a creative culture within an organization.

4 New business design

Insights into entrepreneurship, innovation, and startups within the creative industries, as to embark on entrepreneurial journeys in a variety of industries.

5 Generative leadership and designing for outcomes

From designing a vision to practices for driving change and results in evolving contexts and business challenges.

6 Capstone project and mastering creative and design leadership

Design and carry out an individual or group project centered around a challenge, requiring field work in a business and/or organisational setting.

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Highlights

Team-based education

The programme promotes peer-to-peer learning as a central element in its learning design. This comes alive in both project work as well as debates, facilitated conversations, group-work, and assessments.

Reflective-practice approach

This master takes an offset in practice and aims at improving practice. Purposeful and disciplined reflection is seen as a key component for personal and professional leadership development and as well as for driving results and individual and group learning.

International faculty

Being a hybrid education allows for a faculty situated in different countries and organisations. This grants you an international perspective on the subjects in the master’s and the challenges you engage in, as well as an international network for a future career.

Portfolio-based education

Throughout the education you will engage in several projects that provide exposure to a wide range of challenges, sources either from the faculty or from yourself. Your active work on these challenges grants you evidence of your skills and accomplishment which will help you continuously develop your own career and further learning path.

Professional prospects

Graduates are well positioned for careers in all three sectors of our society, but there is a strong emphasis on the creative industries, stretching from visual arts and crafts, over design to media and software and video games.

Managing and leading creative and design work today requires a well-rounded leadership skillset. How to go about creating the conditions and processes for creativity, design-processes, problem-solving and innovation is widely seen as a leadership responsibility, but also a capacity and expertise that is desired and expected from future leaders.

The examples of possible professions listed below suggest that graduates can pursue careers that suggest management of people as well as certain business functions. Essentially it is about lifting your subject matter expertise, or supplementing it with more managerial knowledge, skills, and attitudes, allowing you to elevate your career according to your specific interests:

Creative Direction
Design Strategy
Design Thinking Consultancy
Advertising and Marketing Direction
User Experience (UX) Lead
Design Education
Non-profit Creative Direction
Entertainment Industry Production
Architectural Design Direction
Media Content Direction
Sustainability Consultancy
Digital Transformation Leader
Communication Strategy
Innovation Consultancy

“Leadership competency in enabling collaborative creativity that results in innovative design addressing increasingly, complex issues is educationally essential for affecting perpetual, positive change for the benefit of others.”

Robert Kelly PhD, associate professor – Faculty of Arts (University of Calgary)

“We need better leadership to harness creativity and design—not to control, but to inspire, challenge, and drive real change.”

Christer Windeløv-Lidzélius, director

“This master’s strikes a great balance between theory and practice, offering deep insights into creativity and different layers and styles of leadership. It’s been an eye-opening journey in navigating complexity, inspiring teams, and driving meaningful innovation.”

Elena Caruso, student

“Exploring the dynamic intersections of design, creativity, and leadership has equipped me with the skills and vision to create meaningful change in my design practice. Through this program, I now feel closer than ever to unlocking my full potential as a transformative leader.”

Diego Gómez, student

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Do you want to know more about the Masters’ School?

Each academic year, students with very diverse professional and cultural profiles of more than 80 nationalities from all over the world attend their master’s or postgraduate training at Elisava. We want to promote connections and networks among students beyond the context of each master’s degree to promote the exchange of knowledge through very diverse projects: we organize interdisciplinary workshops and conferences; transdisciplinary projects with students from several master’s degrees; collaborations with companies, institutions and NGOs…

Faculty

Direction

Christer Windeløv-Lidzélius Magdalena Herrador

Faculty

Flavio Fabiani (Peoplerise) Stef Silva Rodríguez (Invisible, Jungle) Albert Barreiro (The Cocktail) Robert Kelly Christian Byrge Manuel Pablo García-Lechuz Sierra Claudia Raffo

Masters’ Scholarships

Do you want to study the MA in Creativity and Design Leadership, at Elisava? In this section you will be able to check all the information on the annual call for scholarships, which recognize, reward and disseminate the talent and excellence of future master’s students.

Elisava Masters’ Scholarships