This is a CTP of initiative: DESIS - ID+ DESIS Lab, Aveiro (Portugal)
The founder of the DESIS Network invited the +ID institute to constitute a DESIS Lab. This invitation was kept open from 2009 – 2011. This was considered a critical turning point because it started the actions that culminated with the foundation of the ID+ DESIS Lab in 2011:
“The (DESIS founder) had proposed the challenge to create a DESIS Lab in 2009, but at that time I was the only person able to manage the Lab, I didn’t have the critical mass of participants that would be required to open up a DESIS Lab and I could not do it alone”.
A review of DESIS documents at that time stated that a DESIS Lab was a “group of professors, researchers and students who orient their design and research activities towards social innovation, and that a DESIS Lab operates at the local scale with local partners, but also in collaboration with other DESIS Labs and other national and international partners” (DESIS Website).
Therefore, two initial actions were crucial to be able to accept the invitation to constitute the DESIS Lab in the ID+ Institute:
1) To gather a team of researchers and professors to develop the topic of “design for social innovation”;
2) Have students working on the topic (in courses, dissertations and theses).
To arrive at these two objectives: “in 2010-2011, I think, was the first year in which a specific discipline (including the topic of design for social innovation) was created and offered to Master’s students. It was an optional course. I had a colleague that was not working specifically with design for social innovation but was working with collaborative processes. I considered that he could be a partner and teach with me, and start to create the team with other students, etc. At the time this colleague was assistant professor at the university as well as a PhD student”.
This was important because, “either we had a discipline able to boost the activities of DESIS or we would not be able to do anything”.
Progressively, projects and/or programmes of activities on the topic (national or international level) were also developed in the ID+.
From 2009 to 2011 all these requirements were fulfilled and the DESIS Lab was created.
From 2008 to 2011, the founder of the DESIS Network worked actively to create the network. One of his main actions during this period was: (1) to invite his former PhD students to create DESIS Labs in their universities of affiliation: (2) to invite existing Labs and research groups to join.
Former PhD Students from the Politecnico di Milano that had developed their theses or research activities related to Design for Social Innovation, took positions in universities all over the world or returned to their original academic positions to continue their careers, and answered the invitation.
“The invitation was received in 2009 when he (DESIS founder) was actively developing the DESIS Network”
Therefore, the first DESIS Labs and groups were founded between 2008-2011. Some examples include: the DESIS research group based at the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (Coppe was founded in 2008 and gathered researchers from other universities in Brazil); in 2009 Tongji University become one of the founding members of the DESIS-China Network; the Parsons DESIS Lab in New York was founded in 2009, and so on.
The first actions taken towards the implementation of a DESIS Lab were: (1) to gather a team of researchers and professors to develop the topic of “design for social innovation”; (2) to have students working on the topic (in courses, dissertations and theses). The events listed below are related to these two main actions.
2008 - The name DESIS – Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability, was created by its founder. Since 2009, the founder has been developing the network by supporting the creation of the first labs.
2009 – A professor at the ID+ Institute concludes their PhD thesis in Design for Social Innovation. . Conclusion of a thesis in Design for Social Innovation and sustainability included this emerging issue in the research agenda and in didactic activities at this institute.
2010 – First discipline created and offered at the University of Aveiro related to the theory and practice of Design for Social Innovation. The discipline offered in 2010 is called “Social Ergonomics of Design” (not Design for Social Innovation). Ergonomics is a well recognized field, related to Design research and theory. The term Ergonomics still appears in the title as the main area of the course. However, contents on design for social innovation are inserted in the program.
2010 – The first collaboration between researchers around design for social innovation is consolidated. Two professors collaborate offering the course “Social Ergonomics of Design”. This collaboration progressively increased.
2011 – Formalisation of the DESIS Network starts. The DESIS Network’s informal members start to map the characteristics of the DESIS Labs and to register their affiliations. In this process the ID+ DESIS Lab is created.
2014 – The DESIS Network is formalized as an association. The organization of the DESIS Network as a non-profit association under the Italian Law began to structure its activities, including allocating specific duties and rights for members as well as implementing the organization of an annual assembly.
In 2009 “Design for social innovation” was not practiced or studied at the University of Aveiro and its Design courses at undergraduate and graduate levels did not include this topic as part of the didactic offered. This was the same as in most of the Design Schools all over the world.
One of the first actions to effectively create a DESIS Lab was to define a course in which the topic could be taught. The first course to answer this demand was called “Social Ergonomics of Design” and started in 2010. Initially, the name of this discipline included “social innovation” as part of “ergonomics” a very well recognized research and didactic field:
“a discipline was created, which is now called Design for Social Innovation, but it started as Social Ergonomics of Design. The students started to develop case studies as a way to understand the characteristics of social innovation”.
At first it was not possible to name the course “Design for Social Innovation”. This only became possible in 2012.
Therefore, the inclusion of the topic “social innovation” in a course in the Master’s Program of Design was done progressively. At the University of Aveiro this was not exclusively seen as progressive, as it constituted a debate between design theorists that related Design discipline with well-recognized practices such as product and graphic design.
The second contestation came during the development of the first Masters dissertation on Design for Social Innovation. The master’s student initially referred the dissertation only to Graphic Design (a well-recognized field of Design): “it was her intention to develop a package that would be able to stimulate children to eat fruits”. Progressively, the student incorporated the social innovation approach into the dissertation and later other master’s students also did the same.
These contestations were overcome and design for social innovation was progressively being taught. It was included as part of design and research activities for students at the University of Aveiro.
The invitation to create a DESIS Lab in the ID+ was immediately identified as a critical turning point.
The progressive formation of the DESIS Network, with examples of DESIS Labs being created in other universities around the world and projects being developed by other former PhD students, provided positive support in order to overcome local difficulties by indicating that the “Design for Social Innovation” was being constituted as an affirmed field in Design theory and practices. It also worked as an example to be showcased at the University of Aveiro and other institutions that were members of the ID+.
It was not possible to anticipate the consequences that accepting the invitation (and effectively taking part in the DESIS Network by becoming an ID+ DESIS Lab in 2011) would bring. After the affiliation, the benefits brought by the continuous connection with other professors in the network started to be better understood.
The development of the DESIS Lab in the +ID institute included the change of ambitions of its members that included:
“how design could boost social creativity, promote creativity and collaborative cities, promote sustainability and the values of a local cultural heritage” and reach these objectives “by using participatory and community building approaches”
In the University of Aveiro, these issues started to be taught and developed with design students as one of the steps to create the local DESIS Lab. The focus was placed on a collection of case studies of social innovation at a territorial level (in the city of Aveiro). This enabled collaboration between the two initial professors involved in the field. The contents of this discipline evolved by incorporating the lessons learnt in the first projects.
For example: “with the project about aging, developed in 2011, we have verified how students were interested and motivated to develop field work and interact with local communities. We perceived that we have the possibility of developing the same approach with students in the course”.
One of the important factors in this initial moment was the interest of the students on the course: “in the beginning we just accepted 15 students, but there was a lot of interest in the course, and we increased the offer to 20 vacancies. There was a moment in which we had 38 students interested in the course (…) the students were interested, it is an area they wanted to work in or at least to explore the field”.
Considering the interest demonstrated by students, “I started to “look for ‘real’ projects to them to get involved” (this led to the development of two projects: “Action for age” and “What do we eat” (described as the next two CTPs).
The invitation to take part in the DESIS network, and the actions to reach this objective, were able to promote conversations in the Research Institute for Design, Media and Culture [ID+] around the emergence of social innovation as a focus for design practices and the progressive recognition of its activities in the institute, which culminated in the creation of the DESIS Lab in 2011.
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