Designer (m/f/d) — Speculative Design Methods, Prototyping & Visualization

19.03.2026, Academic staff

The Munich Design Institute is inviting applications for a 1-year postdoctoral/doctoral position to work within the DFG Cluster of Excellence TransforM. We invite applications from designers and design researchers who can envision, visualize and make tangible complex scenarios for uncertain futures.

About the Munich Design Institute:

The newly established Munich Design Institute (MDI) is an integrative research institute where pressing questions of our time are explored through design, science, and design science. We believe that the combination of rigorous scientific research and creative imagination is key to solving complex problems of our time.

The institute is led by Prof. Annette Diefenthaler, who holds the Chair of Design and Transdisciplinarity and builds on 20 years of international experience in design and design research in practice. The MDI will be a catalyst for world-class design research, bringing together some of the smartest minds from academia, industry, and the public. We will collaboratively generate outcomes that help power the evolution of design in both scholarly research and practice. The institute will foster a vibrant and inclusive culture where wildly creative ideas for a hopeful future can emerge, and will provide an inspiring learning environment to students.

The position is funded by and affiliated with TransforM – the Munich Center for Transformative Technologies and Societal Change – a new social science research cluster funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) as part of the Excellence Strategy.

What we are looking for:

We invite applications from designers and design researchers who can envision, visualize and make tangible complex scenarios for uncertain futures. We seek candidates who practice speculative and systems-oriented design, prototyping, facilitation, and knowledge visualization, with a strong interest in transformative technologies and societal change.

Requirements:

Necessary:

• Design process & methodological expertise — ability to select, adapt, and apply design methods to open research and design questions
• Application of speculative design methods — futuring, design fiction, scenario building
• Facilitation & teaching — designing and leading workshops, co-creation sessions, and knowledge-exchange formats with non-designers
• Visualization & prototyping — translating complex, abstract ideas into accessible visual forms and concept-driven prototypes (physical, digital, or hybrid)
• Documentation & reflection practice — maintaining rigorous design process documentation
• Research proposal development — willingness to develop an application for third-party funding or a scholarship for the further pursuit of design research beyond the period of the seed grant funding, with the support of the MDI and TransforM teams.

Beneficial:

• Experience in systems thinking and the ability to map interdependencies, feedback loops, and sociotechnical structures
• Creative problem-solving skills to handle uncertainty and ambiguity in a dynamic environment and to keep track of a variety of priorities to find pragmatic and meaningful solutions
• Demonstrated ability to work in a collaborative, multi-disciplinary, international environment is an advantage
• Previous experience with social science questions concerning technologies is an advantage

Qualifications:

• If you do not yet have a doctoral degree: A completed master's degree in design, such as Interaction Design, Communication Design, Product Design, Design Engineering, Speculative Design Futures, etc. Candidates from adjacent disciplines who can demonstrate a strong design practice and methodological foundation are also encouraged to apply.
• If you have a doctoral degree: A completed or submitted doctoral dissertation in Design Research, with a demonstrable practice in design methods, visualization, or speculative design. Candidates whose dissertation engages with themes of technology, society, or futures — even from outside a design faculty — are welcome, provided they can show equivalent design expertise and subject-specific depth.

Your Role:

This designer will be tasked with establishing a sophisticated practice of designing future visions in the context of the TransforM research cluster. They will be embedded in projects such as Responsible Innovation in 'Far Upstream' Technologies and Fundamental Science (Prof. Urs Gasser, Prof. Sebastian Pfotenhauer) – collaborating closely with researchers to translate complex future scenarios and implicit knowledge into artifacts, prototypes, and visual narratives. The designer will work across multiple initiatives, aiming to identify, experiment with, and ultimately document and share design methods that best help make future scenarios tangible.

The ideal candidate's work aligns TransforM's research mission and combines critical inquiry, creative experimentation, and interdisciplinary collaboration.

Candidates are expected to develop their independent research proposals within TransforM’s scholarly community and submit them to external funding organizations for further funding. In the event of a successful application, the researchers and their projects will remain affiliated with the TransforM Cluster and the MDI.

What We Offer:

• Up to 12 months of seed funding for a position at the Munich Design Institute at the Technical University of Munich (TUM)
• Positions will be funded according to TV-L based on experience and level of qualification (typically a 75% role TV-L E13 for a PhD position; or a 100% role TV-L E13 for a postdoc position)
• Structured mentoring and proposal-development support by TransforM researchers
• Access to workshops, seminars, proposal coaching, and professional development formats
• The opportunity to work within a unique interdisciplinary research community concerned with social science questions about technology and innovation to significantly contribute to the development of MDI's research portfolio and its growth
• A versatile work environment located primarily in Garching at the MDI site.

About TransforM:

TransforM – the Munich Center for Transformative Technologies and Societal Change – is a new social science research cluster funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) as part of the Excellence Strategy. TransforM tackles the dual challenge of advancing fundamental social science for highly technologized societies and rethinking technology development through a social science lens. As an interdisciplinary social science cluster with a principal focus on technology, the goal is to augment current theories and methods to comprehensively understand and help shape transformative technology to better serve diverse societal needs. Better knowledge about why, when, and how technologies become socially transformative will enhance our ability to assess and inform transformation pathways 'all the way through' – from the early stages of their emergence to their wider socio-economic impact.

TransforM is deeply embedded in Munich's vibrant innovation ecosystem. Anchored by two of Germany's leading research universities – Technical University of Munich (TUM) and Ludwig Maximilians University (LMU) – as well as an exceptional concentration of non-university research institutions concerned with technology and innovation (including the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition, the Deutsches Museum, the ifo Institute for Economic Research, the ZEW Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research, and UnternehmerTUM, among others), the cluster brings together an unrivaled depth and diversity of social science expertise focused specifically on technology.

www.transform-cluster.de

About the TransforM Seed Fund:

This position is funded through a seed fund primarily aimed at PhD candidates and post-doctoral researchers. For up to 12 months, this seed fund is designed to support early-career design researchers in developing independent research proposals within TransforM's scholarly community and submitting them to external funding organizations for further support. Upon a successful application, the researchers and their projects will remain affiliated with the TransforM Cluster. We support the development of an externally funded scholarship application or a third-party funded project proposal during this time, but it is not a requirement for the role.

TransforM and the Munich Design Institute are committed to building a diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace. We strongly encourage applications from individuals from underrepresented or marginalized backgrounds, including—but not limited to—people of different ethnicities, nationalities, gender identities, sexual orientations, ages, and socioeconomic backgrounds. The position is suitable for people with severe disabilities, and we are committed to providing reasonable accommodations throughout the recruitment process and employment. Applicants with severe disabilities will be given preference in hiring when their suitability, qualifications, and professional performance are essentially equal. The Technical University of Munich aims to increase the proportion of women; applications from women are therefore expressly encouraged.

Application Process:

Application Deadline: 15 April 2026

Interviews will be conducted latest within two weeks after the deadline.

Ideal start date: June 2026

Please send your complete application as a single PDF document to applications.mdi@tum.de with the subject line "TransforM Seed Fund Application", including the following components:

• Short cover letter (max. 1 page) – please indicate any external funding organization and call you will be targeting, if applicable
• Curriculum vitae (max. 3 pages)
• Portfolio of at least 4 relevant examples of your design work
• If applicable to you, sketch of proposal idea for further development into a full proposal for funding application during the seed-fund period, based on the following template: TransforM Seed Fund Project Template
• Names of 1-2 references with a brief description of your relationship to them

The position is suitable for disabled persons. Disabled applicants will be given preference in case of generally equivalent suitability, aptitude and professional performance.

Data Protection Information:
When you apply for a position with the Technical University of Munich (TUM), you are submitting personal information. With regard to personal information, please take note of the Datenschutzhinweise gemäß Art. 13 Datenschutz-Grundverordnung (DSGVO) zur Erhebung und Verarbeitung von personenbezogenen Daten im Rahmen Ihrer Bewerbung. (data protection information on collecting and processing personal data contained in your application in accordance with Art. 13 of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)). By submitting your application, you confirm that you have acknowledged the above data protection information of TUM.

Kontakt: Prof. Annette Diefenthaler, applications.mdi@tum.de

http://www.mdi.tum.de