How can we reform curricula, and universities at large, through a participatory design approach? Two development processes, one from Umeå Institute of Design in Sweden and the other one from Aalto University in Finland, are shown to exemplify this. These cases are used to highlight different practices on how change is designed and executed, what the prerequisites for a successful process are, what challenges these approaches bring, and how we can develop the practice of developing universities - thorough a participatory design approach - further