The Service Design Academy (SDA) Receives the First Organisational Accreditation from the SDN!

We are pleased to announce that the Service Design Academy (SDA) is the first-ever organisation accredited by the Service Design Network (SDN)! Through our Organisational Accreditation initiative, the SDN recognises the authority and quality of SDA in the provision of service design education and qualification. SDA is a Service Design educational institution committed to creating positive impact through interactive, practice-based learning. SDA was founded in 2017 and is based in Dundee & Angus College, Gardyne Campus, Dundee Scotland.

“We are delighted to be the first organisation ever accredited; it means a lot to us and we look forward to a long and fruitful partnership with the Service Design Network.” - Caron Sandeman, Service Design Academy (SDA) - Dundee and Angus College

The Service Design Academy (SDA) provides individuals and businesses with flexible, professionally focused, accredited training and education in service design. Based in Scotland, the SDA offers the highest standards of engaging class and online course content delivered by world-class service design practitioners and researchers. 

SDN Master Trainer Katie Murrie and SDN Trainers Chris Muir and Dr Jo McNicoll are the consultants handling the delivery of service design training for SDA. This team of professionals have all been granted SDN Trainer Accreditation. 

SDA offers unique service design courses for groups, individuals and businesses, including four 2-day courses delivered on campus, tailored workshops onsite for organisations, as well as an accredited Professional Development Award in Service Design. All courses will soon be available online featuring remote interactive classrooms, videos and human conversations. Their courses and events aim to foster design leadership, build service design capacity and create a community of practitioners.

“The course has been developed with a clear expert understanding of the practical application of the work. It promotes inclusivity, highlights the value of lived experience and balances understanding with the confidence to push yourself into practicing the methods. It’s immersive, comprehensive and organised with passion and energy. I’d highly recommend it to anyone interested in improving their processes for service design, curious about how to collaborate and who want to engage in authentic co-design with service users.” - Louise Cannon, User Journey Manager at UnLtd (participant reflection of the PDA in Service Design)

The Service Design Network recognises the qualification of the SDA’s approach to learning, based on the following:

  • workshops engage all participants, encourage shared thinking and collaborative working
  • workshop activities promote learning & independent learning
  • workshops contain a variety of approaches and methods
  • workshops are designed to meet both organisational and participant needs
  • workshop participants leave with a hard and digital copy workbook and have access to an online toolkit, downloadable templates and expert insight videos 

Get a glimpse of SDA´s recent workshop as well as participants' reflections here.

Through our Organisational Accreditation initiative, SDA is also recognised as a high-quality partner of the SDN Academy, an international educational provider of high-quality service design content. Accordingly, SDA will also be recognised as an SDN Academy Satellite facility.

We congratulate SDA and look forward to a fruitful collaboration! 

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Interested in your organisation be considered for accreditation by the Service Design Network? Contact us for more information.

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