The seminar “DESIGN, CREATIVITY AND MADE IN ITALY. Design as a strategic lever for business innovation” is an opportunity for dialogue and discussion on the cooperative relationship between Design, Education, and Business, considered an essential success factor for knowledge-based economies and societies, capable of generating positive direct and indirect effects.

In Italy, as in other European countries, universities' commitment to third-mission activities is growing, while businesses are showing increasing trust and greater interest in relationships with academia and in innovative methodologies and approaches linked to the discipline of Design. Design's approach to research ensures continuous incremental innovation by combining, on one hand, exploratory investigation (exploration) of new scientific, technological, and market knowledge and opportunities and, on the other hand, the ability to exploit (exploitation) the knowledge base of already developed projects to guarantee continuous innovation processes.

In highly qualified entrepreneurial contexts, Design today represents a strategic element capable of driving virtuous innovation processes and an essential component in Open Innovation processes, facilitating companies in absorbing highly qualified external knowledge and enabling intersectoral and intercompany knowledge transfer.
In this sense, the seminar, promoted by the Sapienza Design Research Interdepartmental Center with ADI (Association for Industrial Design) and Symbola (Foundation for Italian Quality), aims to offer an opportunity for dialogue and exchange of ideas to stimulate debate on the synergistic relationship between Design/Education/Business, creating a responsive and inclusive environment that embraces new cooperative actions guided by Design.

PROGRAM

Institutional Greetings
Antonella Polimeni, Rector, Sapienza University of Rome

Speakers
Lorenzo Imbesi (Chair), Director, Sapienza Design Research Center;
Luciano Galimberti, President, ADI
Domenico Sturabotti, Director, Symbola Foundation
Patrizia Ranzo, President of the Master’s Degree in Design for Innovation, Department of DADI, Vanvitelli University
Gianluca Vagnani, Professor of Business Economics and Management, Sapienza University of Rome
Claudio Gambardella, Coordinator, ADI Handmade in Italy Thematic Commission, and Professor of Industrial Design, Department of DADI, Vanvitelli University

Conclusions
Ermete Realacci, President, Symbola Foundation
Gian Paolo Manzella, Undersecretary of State, Ministry of Economic Development

Organization

Scientific Committee
Romana Andò, Sapienza University of Rome
Claudio Gambardella, ADI and Department of DADI, Vanvitelli University
Angela Giambattista, Sapienza University of Rome
Lorenzo Imbesi, Director, Sapienza Design Research Center
Tonino Saggio, Sapienza University of Rome
Domenico Sturabotti, Symbola Foundation
Gianluca Vagnani, Sapienza University of Rome

Technical-Organizational Committee
Luca D’Elia, Sapienza University of Rome
Gianni Denaro, Sapienza University of Rome
Paride Duello, Sapienza University of Rome