University-company collaboration: strengthening synergies between design education and business practice

The book is a practice-based volume that exposes the Wake Up! project results, joint with theoretical contribution about the themes of the New Made in Italy, the collaboration between university and companies of the territory and the collaboration between Italian and Chinese universities in the field of fashion. “Wake Up! Design Matchmaking” is a groundbreaking educational initiative spearheaded by Fiera di Parma, uniting 90 students from Politecnico di Milano with peers from two esteemed Chinese institutions, namely the Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology and Jingyan University. Together, they collaborated with 15 emerging talents from “New Made in Italy” companies. The aim of the book is to increase the design debate about the New Made in Italy and to identify an action research model in the field of local impact design.