Introduction to Design in Complex Systems

This is an intensive, structured one-week programme. The aim of the activities in this course is to engage you in forming a learning community with your peers and instructors, to introduce you to the TPM mindset, and to support you in developing a skill set that is needed for designing in socio-technical systems. As such, this course is an introduction to the other design-related courses in the COSEM MSc programme: SEN1121, 1131, 1141, 1151 and 1161. The course consists of a mix of lectures and collaborative project work. Lectures introduce the basic vocabulary, concepts, analytical and design methods that are useful for designing technical structures, institutions and stakeholder processes. Daily assignments are related to a real-world design problem and challenge students to apply these concepts and methods. At the end of the week, teams present an intervention of their own creation in response to the real-world problem presented to them to peers and instructors.