International postgraduate taught (PGT) students face a range of challenges when navigating UK university systems – from understanding academic expectations and accessing support services to building meaningful relationships with staff and peers. Despite universities’ growing efforts to enhance inclusivity and the overall student experience, many service design processes still operate in a top-down manner, offering limited opportunities for international PGT students to co-create or influence the systems that shape their academic journeys.
This project aims to address this gap by developing and evaluating a low-cost digital co-creation tool and process that enable effective and sustainable collaboration between students and staff in the co-design of university services. The focus will be on PGT programmes and the experiences of international PGT students, with De Montfort University (DMU) serving as the pilot study and proof of concept.
This project is a short-term proof-of-concept initiative funded by DMU’s Faculty Research & Innovation Fund (Faculty of Technology, Arts, and Culture), running from January to July 2026.