Square that says Applications are OPEN. Design with us. DSI SVA MFA Design for Social Innovation in black and magenta text on a yellow background.

Creative Courage. Apply now.

At MFA DSI, you’ll learn the design mindsets and capabilities to support people and the planet.

How can design shift us towards more healthy, equitable systems?
What conditions and collaborations enable communities, systems, and ecosystems to thrive?
How can social design increase care and capacities for change?

Applications Are Open for Fall 2026

Social design
works with communities, organizations, governments, businesses, and the planet through:

Strengthening Relationships + Care

Advocating for health, access, anti-discrimination, justice, joy, and healing. Supporting shared values and interdependence while honoring nature’s wisdom.
Social Design asks good questions and deepens connections, with care.

Co-Creating Intentionally.

Collaborating with communities, advocating for mutual benefit, accountability, and abundance. Centering lived experience and re, while reducing harm.
Social Design can shift power while building leadership and creatively responding.

Embracing Complexities

Breaking from things that no longer serve us. Recognizing the continuum and pluralities, and making the invisible visible.
Social Design supports new thinking over new things, to imagine possibilities and lead with vision.

Learn More

EVENTS

National Portfolio Day ONLINE. Meet DSI Chair, Miya Osaki.

Get a headstart on your application to MFA DSI.

Meet Miya Osaki, health + care, designer, educator, and Chair of SVA – MFA Design for Social Innovation on Saturday, September 27, 2025, from 1 – 5 pm EST, at the National Portfolio Day ONLINE event. Share your portfolio and get feedback. Ask questions. Find out how we can design a better future, together.

EVENT

Ask Us Anything Virtual Info Session

Come to this virtual info session to find out more about this social design graduate program, why purpose-driven designers and thinkers from around the globe are coming to DSI, and how to make a difference in the world by design.

CURRICULUM

Fast Track

Fast Track is an honors program open to DSI students that encourages the opportunity to design, prototype, and propel their ideas into the real world at an accelerated rate. Fall 2025 students will be announced soon!

ALUM AT WORK

Effy Tam (MFA DSI ’23)

Over 250+ DSI Alums are putting social design to work. Find out more about what DSI graduates are doing now and what kind of careers and collaborations they are creatively leading.

Thesis 2023

Thesis 2023

Unlocking the Golden Years

Effy Tam (Xiaoming Tan, MFA DSI ’23)

A Senior-Centered Language and Technology Curriculum designed by and for elderly Chinese immigrants in New York.

Read