Context of the analysis and methodology

The chapter introduces the methodology of the book, which aims at picturing the funded research of the Department of Design of the Politecnico di Milano, building the research landscape explored by its researchers through access to competitive funds (regional, national and EU). For this scope, the study qualitatively analyses the research projects coordinated or participated by principal investigators from the Department of Design, funded and concluded in the timeframe 2014-mid 2021. The ambition is to gain insights into the topics addressed, the dimension of such strands of investigation, and the relationship with the Department’s basic research, capturing the results achieved in the short, medium, and long term. Ultimately, the intent is to also reason on upcoming directions of design research. The methodology applied to return such a picture that reads the multi-level features of the Department’s funded research relies on the construction of a knowledge basis composed of project descriptions with the same structure to grant a robust and reliable comparison among them. The methodology has three phases: 1. Project sample definition 2. Knowledge base development 3. Data extraction and interpretation The study initiated in June 2021 and ended in September 2022.