Design, Research and Innovation for the Competitiveness of the Italian manufacturing System

This paper is to define the role of the Research Unit ProgettoProdotto of the Politecnico di Milano within new products’ developing processes and to clarify in which way we provide innovation based on design research. Therefore, the critical issue is the definition of the role of the design research activity in product innovation processes, both from the theoretical and practical point of view. The three main concepts that delimit the interest area are: research, innovation and design. The first part of the paper (paragraphs 1, 2 and 3) is devoted to a definition of these three concepts and to an analysis of the relationships among them. The aim is to define what the Research Unit ProgettoProdotto intends as design research. In the second part of the paper (paragraphs 4, 5 and 6) the RU ProgettoProdotto approach to design research for innovation is presented, together with examples of design research activities carried out in collaboration with Italian companies.