Master of Arts in Design Innovation

at Manchester Metropolitan University United Kingdom

With a toolkit that mixes the creative and the technical, an animator does all this and more. Whether working in the artistic or commercial worlds, animators produce the moving images for anything from film and broadcast media to digital platforms and video games. Our BA (Hons) Animation course brings together key aspects of contemporary professional animation practice to help you prepare for an exciting range of careers, from animation to concept art to games development.

As an animation student you will be part the School of Digital Arts, a vibrant community that offers the chance to explore every aspect of what it means to work in the digital arts. You will work across a range of creative practices – just as the professionals do – to collaborate on cross-disciplinary group projects, alongside photographers, sound engineers, filmmakers, games and media professionals. And, just as we mirror industry practices, we also work with industry-standard tools – learning within a brand new, purpose-built building that comes equipped with the latest emerging technologies for animation, filmmaking and more.

Manchester offers an ideal setting as an animation student. A global, creative city, it has a long-established history of animation and is home to Cosgrove Hall Films – creators of numerous children’s animations and whose company founders were both students of Manchester Metropolitan University. Today the city has a thriving industry, with a significant TV, film and digital production presence at MediaCityUK, which is home to the BBC, ITV and a host of independent media companies, all of which offer you some inspiring opportunities.

With a course that’s built on our local heritage and that makes the most of our industry links, you’ll have the chance to develop the skills, build the network and gain the experience that rewarding careers are made from.

Public Health is a growing concern with issues such as obesity and other complex conditions requiring a need for education and specialist training across the health sector.

The MPH Global Public Health offers a foundation in public health training and exposure to global health analysis, policies, systems and practices.

We’ve designed this course for health professionals looking to develop a career in public health and epidemiology.

You’ll focus on global public health issues guided by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), set by the United Nations General Assembly in 2015:

• Reproductive, maternal, new-born and child health
• Infectious diseases
• Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and mental health
• Injuries and violence
• Universal health coverage (UHC) and health systems
• Environmental risks
• Health risks and disease outbreaks

You’ll develop an in depth understanding of the health challenges facing populations and nations in an increasingly globalised world. We aim to equip you with skills for planning, managing and evaluating health services for disease prevention, health protection and health promotion.

Graduates from this MPH should develop a workforce with strong management, leadership and critical thinking skills.

Examine the role of psychologists in legal settings, advances in the psychological understanding of criminal behaviour, and offender assessment and rehabilitation.

Our master's course is specifically designed to meet the criteria of the BPS Division of Forensic Psychology Training Committee. It’s accredited as the first stage towards gaining Chartered Psychologist status with the BPS.

You’ll explore topics such as investigating and prosecuting crime, rehabilitation, and other current issues within forensic psychology.

In practical sessions, you might work on case formulations, complete violence risk assessments and undertake behavioural investigative advice reports.

As well as lectures, seminars and workshops, you’ll have the opportunity to hear from guest speakers to help you learn about what it’s like to work in the field. Past speakers include alumni talking about their careers, members of the local police force, and psychologists working in prisons.

Our BA (Hons) Product Design and Craft course has a material-led, experimental philosophy that pursues a thinking through making approach to design, supporting the development of personal creative agendas. Through a program of study that explores our understanding of the material world, you will learn how to be a designer and maker of objects that enhance our daily interactions. You will develop essential skills in creative thinking and design strategy, and then apply these to challenge how you design for product and for craft.

You will discover how to design and produce objects that embrace both traditional handmade approaches and contemporary machine and digital manufacturing. Through creative experimentation, we strive to give ideas a material voice, as the thinking behind an object and its material execution are of equal importance. Your design work will also look to address a diverse range of areas including social issues, global awareness and local demand by considering the objects you design and the materials and processes you use. This course will enable you to explore strategies, materials and processes so you can develop creative and professional skills to support a sustainable career in design and craft making.

Our LLM in Legal Practice at the Bar brings together the essential practical skills and knowledge from our Bar Training Course (BTC) and masters-level legal research skills that can help you stand out in a competitive jobs market.

Everything about the BTC element of the course is built to prepare you for life as a barrister. You'll work with other students in a mini chambers group, designed to mirror the real-life practices you'll face in a career at the bar. You’ll further prepare for the demands of the Bar with our innovative professional practice unit, under the mentorship of a practising barrister.

Meanwhile, the LLM advanced study element offers the chance for you to deepen your knowledge in a specialist area of the law.

You’ll learn from a team that includes seasoned barristers, solicitors and a deputy district judge, together with active researchers and scholars who produce impactful legal research in the UK and internationally.

Combined with the strong links we’ve built with the legal profession, both locally and across the Northern Circuit, this is a very professionally focused course. Put simply, if you want to get onto the path to practice, while building your legal research knowledge and skills, this is an ideal environment for developing the resilience, confidence and leadership you’ll need to thrive at the Bar or a related legal field.

By bringing together our academic expertise with Manchester City F.C.’s City in the Community Foundation, this degree offers the very best of both worlds and an integrated path to rewarding career goals.

This course offers work-based learning in Premier League surroundings, equipping you with the skills, knowledge and experience you will need to find success as a coach or sports programme leader.

Academic experts deliver the programme, providing insight and support during your three years. In addition, you are continually mentored and supported by practitioners from City in the Community who provide perspectives from the real world of delivering community sport coaching and sport development initiatives.

You will learn how coaching sport improves aspects of mental and physical health. The programme will cover all angles of project development – from planning and delivering activity, through to measuring impact – to help understand the potential of sporting opportunities to make a positive difference in the community.  

Placement options

You can opt to spend your third year getting a taste of professional life in a sports or health organisation with the four-year placement route. The program is built around work-based learning and will include placements at each level working with City in the Community on a variety of their football schemes.

Work-based learning is built into the course and you will typically spend 12 hours per week completing the work-based modules. They will give you the opportunity to explore all project areas within City in the Community and gain valuable, hands-on experience with project planning and delivery, monitoring and evaluating processes and quality assurance.

Across all three years of the program, students will complete work-based learning across the core strands of Manchester City F.C.’s City in the Community Foundation.

The Textiles in Practice course enables you to experience textiles as a flexible and diverse subject. You will be taught from within core pathways offering the opportunity to specialise or combine the disciplines of print, weave, knit, embroidery and mixed media. We promote and encourage the interdisciplinary nature of contemporary practice where processes and techniques combine and complement one another. Specialist workshop provision offers hands-on traditional machinery and the latest digital technologies, supported by expert academic and technical staff who are actively engaged in research and are professional designers and artists. Emphasis is placed on the development of personal interests and ambitions that reflect the breadth, versatility and potential of textiles within contemporary art and design contexts.

Through this course, you’ll explore 21st century food manufacturing and develop your understanding of how the biochemical properties of food components influence how foods taste and feel, and how they impact nutrition and health.

You’ll explore sensory evaluation, food law and how global trends in trade, regulation and policy influence the sustainability and wider impact of the food chain. You’ll also consider topics such as modern production and analytical technologies, functional foods and labelling legislation, and how to ensure that foods are nutritious and safe to eat.

Technical skills are vital to the food industry and they’re an important part of this course. In our dedicated food technology and biochemistry laboratories, you’ll have practical sessions in areas of food production, evaluating the sensory properties of foods, microbiological quality, and the chemical and physical analysis of foods.

You’ll also complete a food development project where you’ll create your own innovative foods, working on everything from marketing and sensory analysis to legal requirements – and you’ll create your product too.

Past projects include beer made from waste patisserie products, functional yoghurts for elderly consumers, and sustainable vegan ice cream made with tiger nuts.

Whether you want to attract visitors to Blackpool or manage hotel staff in Barbados, tourism is full of exciting opportunities. And in the aftermath of the global pandemic, the sector is becoming more innovative than ever.

With input from leading organisations like ABTA, Qantas, Visit Manchester and TUI, we’ve developed a range of modules directly relevant to a career in the tourism industry. You’ll explore key questions like what makes an attractive destination? How can marketing be applied in different markets? Which management strategies get the best out of employees? And you’ll put your ideas into practice, working on real world briefs for real organisations.

Develop skills for life
Tourism is big business. To succeed in this competitive market, organisations need managers with strong business acumen and the creative flair to come up with innovative ideas. Here at Manchester Met, we’ll help you develop both.

You’ll build essential skills like analysing financial statements and planning budgets. You’ll study operational models, learn the theories behind human resource management, and can even add a new language to your repertoire. Then, to turn you from a competent manager to a brilliant one, we’ll help you think creatively, strategically and globally. You’ll discover how to apply your broad set of skills to any challenge your future business or employer might face.

Uncover inside knowledge
The course content covers a huge range of topics – but it’s the teaching team that will bring it to life. They’ll use their contacts, their latest research and their experiences working in the industry to inform their teaching. You’ll always be up to date with the latest insights, whether it’s new theories of tourist behaviours, or how businesses stayed agile throughout the coronavirus pandemic.

With our links to top employers and leading organisations, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to expand your network through work experience or special events like guest lectures. And with the option of studying abroad or spending a year on placement, you can expand your horizons even further.

Creating art for games is both specialised and rewarding – a mix of technical know-how and creative thinking that can make a huge impact on the look, feel and experience of any computer game. A game artist can create entire living and breathing virtual worlds, dynamic animated characters and beautiful atmospheric effects in one of the most challenging and exciting roles in the creative industry. Our BA (Hons) Games Art course offers this mix, with core skills and vital understanding that will equip you for your future career in the games industry.

While it’s a specialist course offering a specialist skill set, being part of the School of Digital Arts (SODA) offers the unique opportunity to work with others from across our broad creative community. By working in collaboration with students of photography, animation, sound design and more, as well as students from the Department of Computing and Mathematics, you’ll get a taste of the kind of cross-disciplinary teamwork that’s essential in the fast-moving digital sector. It’s not only a creative environment, but a well-equipped one too. SODA has been purpose-built to develop industry-standard skills, so it offers industry-standard facilities – giving you every opportunity to get to grips with professional-grade development and design technology.

Just as SODA provides a vibrant, dynamic environment for studying games art, Manchester provides an exciting, creative setting. The city is not only home to one of the largest media and creative sectors outside of London, but also has a rich history of video games creation, from Ocean Software in the 1980’s to TT Games and much more today. On our doorstep, you can find renowned CG, visual effects and VR/AR agencies like Flipbook and Carbon Digital, not to mention the BBC’s entire digital and games teams. In short, it’s much more than an exciting city for students, for qualified, well-rounded game artists, Manchester can provide the perfect launch pad for a rewarding career.