The Master track ‘Research, Design and Development’ supports specialization in the attitude, skills and knowledge that are needed to contribute to succeed in the R&D or design department of a small-to-medium enterprise or a multinational corporation.
You work on developing competences in a domain relevant to the company or institution that you wish to work for. As you are expected to be able to operate within a business context, you need to develop design management skills and business awareness. This is in addition to designing and realizing interactive systems through a user-centered process. You should also be able to apply various design approaches and apply them at a fast pace.
The Final Master Project is conducted for or within an industrial corporation such as Philips, Signify, TomTom, BMW, Canon Production Printing, Lightyear, Daimler Benz or Nedap. But collaborations with other non-industrial organizations with R&D departments such as the Máxima Medical Centre (MMC), Utrecht Medical Centre (UMC) or TNO are also possible.
After the RDD track, students have the option to continue in industry or further develop their competences relating to user-centered design methodologies. For the latter, they can apply to the Designing Human-System Interaction Program, a two-year program that awards the academic degree Professional Doctorate in Engineering (EngD).