University of Montreal

Mission Statement

Since the professional outcomes of a design education is so wide and not so predictable in our part of the world, our programs stresses on some core and transversal competencies necessary for strategic tasks. In a way, we are very method oriented. We do emphasize on a good capacity to synthetize problems and to embrace the user's point of vue on the world. Visitors of our annual students projects exhibition are usually impressed by the variety of what they see, ranging from surgical equipment to museographic program, from bikes for disabled to special didactic tools, etc. We are also very keen on promoting a tight integration of the reflexive and the active phases of the design act.

International Role

For the past 25 years, we have established links with more than thirty international partners in Europe, but also Central and South-America, North-Africa and Oceania. We do continue to promote students exchanges with most of our partners, welcoming nearly 20 foreign students every years in our different programs. We also organize special seminars and workshops, encouraging the transfer of knowledge between teachers.

National Role

Quebec's community of teachers and researchers in design is not a very large one. Relations between our colleagues of UQAM and Concordia University are frequent and casual. Hopefully, the inauguration of the Canadian Design Research Network, in which we participate, will help us tie new partnerships with our canadian counterparts. Quebec's small and big businesses never hesitate to submit particular problems to the School who can than propose them as a theme for a workshop.

Main Focus

For years, the School of design has been dedicated to the education of professional designers needed by Quebec's big and small businesses. Its undergraduate programs remains well renowned in this industrial world where students who graduated now performs transport and leisure equipment design, exhibition and signage design, web, furniture, interior, fashion and graphic design. They can as well achieve environmental assessment and management of innovation. Apart from this professional mission, the School has always been sensible to a reinvention of the practice. This now translate in an emphasis put into graduate studies and fundamental research. The School has the advantage of a long historical rooting into the disciplines of the university.