Partnered projects give our students the opportunity to work on a real-world challenge, under the supervision of a lecturer, as part of coursework.
Throughout their studies, our students collaborate with major organisations for partnered projects and real-world experiences. Students participate in the projects they will face in their careers, working closely with local and global businesses to learn by doing, acquire important skills, and forge lasting professional connections in their chosen field.
Students engaged in partnered projects generate new ideas, strategies and campaigns, prototypes and sample designs, publications or finished works.
Our students work across a wide range of issues and organisations.
If you are an industry partner and would like to find out how to work with our students on a partnered project, please visit our student-industry engagement site for partners.
Case study - Orygen Chatsafe
On World Suicide Prevention Day 2021, the Orygen suicide prevention research team, together with RMIT students from Bachelor of Communication Design launched #SafeSpace. It’s an interactive digital space where you can read real stories from young people with lived experience of suicide.
Associate Professor Jo Robinson, head of suicide prevention research at Orygen said she hoped #SafeSpace could be an accessible place for young people to find real stories of hope.
The students worked on #SafeSpace as part of a communication design studio run by Dr Nicola St John. The studio was designed to teach students about how to be ethical and careful designers, while creating safe learning spaces online that prioritised self-care.
Dr Nicola St John, communication design lecturer, said her teaching practice fosters socially responsible designers by bridging the gap between working ethically, centralising safe spaces, and collaborating on real world projects that are meaningful to students.
Partnering with #chatsafe has ultimately transformed my teaching approach to one that is more vulnerable, trusting, and caring. Working in collaboration and being supported by #chatsafe also enabled me to understand my role in creating safe spaces as helping the students to design a campaign in an empathetic, sensitive, and ethical way, and to position myself as someone who was also learning alongside the students.
One of the students who co-designed #SafeSpace, Linsy Angwny hopes that this project reminds other young people that they are not alone in their journey.
I’m very passionate about mental health, and suicide is a topic that is very personal to me. We hoped #SafeSpace could bring hope and recovery to other young people out there.
Links
Visit www.orygen.org.au/chatsafe to learn more about #SafeSpace.
Visit our student-industry engagement site for partners to find out more about working with our students on partnered projects.
Visit our project gallery to view a small sample of recent School of Design partnered projects.
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