Bringing creativity and management together to train professionals capable of driving innovation in the creative and cultural industries. This is the aim behind the strategic partnership between NABA and Luiss Business School, two institutions combining their respective expertise to create two complementary programmes: Design Management and Digital Entertainment Business. Both integrate design, strategic and managerial skills to prepare a new generation of professionals able to interpret the transformations reshaping the creative industries.
The courses are Majors within the first-level Master’s programme in Management of Creative and Cultural Industries and they will begin in A.Y. 2027/28, run for one year and be delivered across Milan, Rome and Amsterdam, in Italian and English, reflecting the international outlook shared by both academic organisations.
NABA and Luiss Business School present two new Master’s programmes: Design Management and Digital Entertainment Business
The Master’s in Design Management, part of NABA's Design Area, is a programme designed to train professionals able to turn design into a strategic driver for the development of products, services and organisations byintegrating design, business, sustainability and artificial intelligence tools within a systemic vision of innovation. The programme transforms design practice into a competitive asset: through a theoretical and practical approach to the fundamentals of management – business planning, strategy, marketing and business economics – students acquire the ability to read the market, identify user needs, and generate value by factoring economic, social, and environmental impact into their decisions.
The Master’s in Digital Entertainment Business, which sits within NABA's Media Design and New Technologies Area, prepares specialists in the management of the emerging digital entertainment ecosystems, from cinema and streaming platforms to digital media, developing expertise in the production, distribution and commercialisation of audiovisual content in increasingly global and competitive markets. The syllabus combines core business disciplines – including strategy, marketing, accounting and performance measurement – with specialist courses focusing on the entertainment industries, production planning, distribution models, communication strategies and audience engagement. Particular attention is given to the impact of emerging technologies and artificial intelligence on how content is created, promoted and consumed, as well as to the broader legal, cultural,and economic context.
Both Master’s programmes will also form part of the new NABA Management Hub, an incubator for cross-disciplinary programmes across NABA’s Academic Areas, active from the 2026/27 Academic Year and dedicated to the management of the Creative Industries. The NABA Management Hub is designed to help creative projects grow by turning ideas into tangible business opportunities and supporting them through to market entry.
NABA and Luiss Business School present two new Master’s programmes: the strategic partnership
The collaboration between NABA and Luiss Business School draws on the decades of experience of both schools in their respective fields: NABA, Italy’s leading Fine Arts Academy and among the world’s top 50 in the QS World University Rankings® by Subject Art & Design, and Luiss Business School, among the 1% of business schools worldwide to hold the prestigious international Triple Crown accreditation. In a landscape where design, media, entertainment and digital technologies influence one another and evolve at an ever-increasing pace, companies are seeking professionals capable of combining creative thinking, entrepreneurial vision and innovation management skills. The new Master’s programmes address this need through an interdisciplinary educational model that combines NABA’s design-led learning by doing approach with Luiss Business School’s managerial expertise.
A distinctive feature of the partnership is its unique educational pathway, built around two perspectives: creative and managerial. Students will have the exceptional opportunity to engage with a faculty comprising lecturers and professionals from both institutions, access the combined networks of companies and alumni of both schools, and develop the cross-disciplinary skills increasingly sought by the market in fields including innovation, sustainability, entrepreneurship and artificial intelligence applied to creative processes.
“The partnership between NABA, Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti, and Luiss Business School stems from a desire to establish a dialogue between complementary expertise and perspectives, bringing together a culture of design and creative experimentation with a robust strategic and entrepreneurial vision. In a constantly evolving landscape, where the creative and cultural industries require professionals with cross-disciplinary expertise and the ability to connect different disciplines, this collaboration aims to provide new tools with which to prepare the professionals of tomorrow. The new Master’s programmes in Design Management and Digital Entertainment Business represent an important step in NABA’s strategy to develop educational pathways capable of addressing emerging needs, training professionals who can draw out the value in design ideas, understand their potential and translate them into tangible market opportunities,” says Daniele Bisello O Ragno, Managing Director of NABA.
