BITS Pilani Announces Setting Up of BITS Design School in Mumbai with Aalto University and RMIT Collaboration

Private university BITS Pilani on Thursday announced the setting up of BITS Design School (BITSDES) in Mumbai. The globally benchmarked design school, which will be in collaboration with Aalto University, Finland, and the School of Design, RMIT, Melbourne, will be set up in 63 acres in the Mumbai metropolitan region, for which Rs 1,500 crore of investment is being made, BITS Pilani said in a statement.

“BITS Design School will reimagine design education with a bold, trans-disciplinary, competency-based approach, and embrace avenues where design can positively impact people, businesses, and the world,” BITS Pilani Chancellor Kumar Mangalam Birla said. BITS Design School will introduce a four-year, residential, Bachelor of Design (Honours) programme in the academic year 2024-25, followed by a Master’s programme and a faculty development programme over the next two years.

Admissions will open on February 26. While a permanent campus is expected to become operational in early 2025, BITS Design School will commence its first academic session in August 2024 out of the interim campus in Powai, Mumbai.

In the second year, students can choose from five streams offered for specialisation — Physical Product Design, Digital Product Design (UI/UX), Human Centred Design, Experience Design, and Visual Design, the statement added.