Abstract:

To cope with market uncertainty and lean toward an exploration dimension of innovation, one possible strategy that companies can adopt is to embrace Strategic Design. In this panorama, the adoption of Strategic Design - meant as an approach to creating innovative product-service systems that characterize the company, its market positioning and a mindset capable of driving transformative change in organisations and societies– can act as fundamental and decisive. Contemporary society features a rapid evolution and change in demand that require new solutions, different from those created in the last years, where Strategic Design can be one of the possible way to answer to those challenges.

Over the years, the contexts where Strategic Design can make a contribution have increased in number as they are no longer limited to a corporate context. Strategic Design can provide support within enterprises, companies, consultancy firms, institutions, governments, territories, and associations. It has become something that is not just a “nice to have” but is a “must have” to achieve a diverse and competitive offer.

Its importance has become central in the research world, studying the discipline to understand how its boundaries have expanded over the years.

Indeed, the strategic designer is an increasingly sought-after figure in business, but one that still does not find a clear role within universities.

In fact, very few universities have constituted a degree program for it; mainly (but still few in the landscape) small vertical courses have been instituted within existing degree programs.

This paper traces in the first part what are the main characteristics, extracted from the world of research, that the strategic designer should possess. In the second part, it reflects on how it is possible (and how it is needed) to teach those capabilities to foster the Strategic Design figure. The aim is to discuss how those characteristics can be transferred inside educational formats so that they can be taught to future designers so that they are ready to face the challenges in the marketplace.

Keywords:

Design education, strategic design, design teaching, educational formats.