In the area of innovation, design and product development we quite often seem to know that something works in practice, but might lack understanding on the theoretical foundations. Many of the topical issues related to design, development, and innovation that seem to be regarded as “common knowledge” within the industry, are insufficiently founded from the theoretical perspective. On the other hand, results of academic research are not often efficiently disseminated to the industry practitioners. Lately, it has been argued, that design research has often failed in building a sustainable discourse between research and practice with some even calling for new research paradigms. Lack of research and understanding on some of the crucial topical issues and insufficient connection between the industry and academia are likely to provide poor grounds for developing the tools, methods and approaches in a sustainable manner as well as for the education of future design professionals.

We are calling for evidence-based academic work on topical issues on design, development, and innovation that strengthens both our theoretical understanding, and the connection between theory and practice.

Conference themes:

Collaboration and co-creation
- Interdisciplinary approaches and teamwork
- Co-creation and user involvement
- University-industry collaboration
- Networked product development and innovation

Approaches and methods
- Creativity and idea generation
- Visualization and prototyping
- Product and service development processes, methods, and tools

Management and support
- Environments supporting design and development
- Management of design and innovation
- Leadership in innovation

Education and teaching
-Answering the needs of future in education
- From disciplinary silos to interdisciplinary expertise
- Contemporary approaches to pedagogical development in design education


Conference takes place at Aalto University Design Factory