Abstract

Design practice is increasingly recognised for its capacity for strategic innovation in transdisciplinary arenas. In contemporary professional contexts designers are contributing to progressively broader areas of service design, strategy and design for social innovation. In response, leading design education institutions are changing significantly in structure and pedagogy to align to changes in practice, meet market demand, and ensure economic sustainability. Supported by national strategic priorities and global design communities that recognise design as a significant driver of innovation, higher education institutions are developing curricula with an emphasis on strategic, creative and entrepreneurial graduate capacities. This paper will examine scholarship that considers the relationship between enterprise and creative capacities and the dimensions of entrepreneurship that are now being developed in diverse models within higher education. Reviewing the structural and pedagogical approaches that these higher education institutions are using to develop entrepreneurial graduate capacities, this research will consider further opportunities for more sustainable, effective, and relevant curricula and the impact this has on design studio in higher education.