Design for social innovation can find in the design schools a major driver for its application and diffusion. In fact, design schools can orient their didactic and research activities towards social innovation. They can become design laboratories where new visions are generated, new tools are defined and tested and where new projects are started and supported.
become a partner
Members can be legally constituted higher education institutions or Universities with design disciplines, private or public. Each Member commits itself to establish and sustain a DESIS lab in its higher education institutions.
become a desis lab
DESIS initiatives are groups of DESIS Labs cooperating to realize a common cultural, didactic or research program and DESIS Assembly is the meeting of the Members and invited Partners.
How to become member?
DESIS purpose “is to promote design for social innovation in higher education institutions with design discipline so as to generate useful design knowledge and to create meaningful social changes in collaboration with other stakeholders…”
Applying members who share the same vision and fulfil the following requirements will become DESIS Labs.
The Association is coordinated by the DESIS International Coordinator: a person elected by the Assembly, who collaborates with the International Coordination Committee (ICC) to evaluate new Labs application requests.
Conditions
A design school / university can establish a DESIS Lab when the following criteria are met.
- A design team is already working in the field of design for social innovation (the team can include academics, students and researchers), can prove maturity and experience about it and is already in contact with DESIS Network.
- The design team expresses interest in DESIS Network's aims and projects and appoints a Lab Coordinator (with the responsibility of the overall Lab policies)
- One or more social innovation-related projects can be presented as an example of the design team's activity (they can be projects developed by students in design classes or by professional researchers and experts; they can be already concluded, in progress or still in the launching phase)
Membership & Activities
Members can be legally constituted higher education institutions or Universities with design disciplines, private or public. Each Member commits itself to establish and sustain a DESIS Lab in its higher education institutions.
Each Member – DESIS Lab also commits to:
- Collaborate in promoting and developing at least one DESIS Initiative
- Participate in the annual DESIS Assembly
- Present a short report on their activities and programs at the annual Assembly
DESIS initiatives are groups of DESIS Labs cooperating to realize a common cultural, didactic or research program and DESIS Assembly is the meeting of the Members and invited Partners (“Partners non-Member” – Universities non Members and other legal entities non Members, interested to the activities of the Association).
Application Process
When the previous requirements are met, send an email with two attachments: Lab Profile, project presentation and a data form about the Lab; Two recommendation letters from two different current DESIS Labs to support your application. The letters should follow this template below and be signed and submitted in PDF form on institutional stationary.
In the event that there are no connections with other DESIS Labs, that must be clearly stated. After the evaluation process, if the application is approved the new DESIS Lab will receive the full support of the International Coordination Committee.
These documents should be sent to the DESIS International Coordination – desis.coordination@gmail.com (please find the guidelines to prepare these documents at the top of the page)
Once the membership request letter and its attachments have been received by the International Coordination Committee, they will be analysed in order to verify if the formal requirements are satisfied. On this basis, feedback will be sent to the interested teams.
After the International Coordination Committee full approval, you will be contacted by DESIS Coordinator regarding the submission of the last documents to be sent, in order to formalize the affiliation process.
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