GLOBAL CHALLENGES AND EDUCATION: THE AGE OF INNOVATION LEADERS

The increasing complexity of markets and social contexts need highly educated professionals to face contemporary challenges. They involve different scale of problems and stakeholders and push academies to restructure their traditional educational offer, redefining their boundaries towards the external ecosystem in search for more sustainable, social and economic paradigms, opening up novel knowledge synergies. In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the potential of design approaches and knowledge to transform businesses and generate innovation. The triadic relationship creativity-innovation-design is still forming and requires a broader and deeper understanding as well as clearly defined metrics. This book is a result of a Pan-European Tempus project – IDEA, led by the Innovation Center ACT Shenkar and supported by the European Commission 2012-2016. The project researched the topics of design-driven innovation as well as industry-academy collaboration as two essential drivers for innovation in the twenty-first century. It brings together an array of 26 experts including design researchers and educators, industrial companies, scientists and engineers from all disciplines, as well as technology transfer companies and public institutions that promote policy in the industrial and educational sectors. The authors of the different chapters took upon themselves the task of advancing a cross-sector and Pan-European discussion on the evolution of design and the way it feeds new ideas that turn into new products and services that can transform the world. It also explores the added value brought by interdisciplinary design-driven research and education for the development of a social environment that fosters innovation and creativity in Israel, in Europe and worldwide.