IASDR 2023 CfP | Call Extended to 7 May 2023

Call  EXTENSION | IASDR 2023 | Life-Changing Design

We are happy to announce that the submission deadline for short and pictorial papers, doctoral and postgraduate consortium abstracts, and panel and workshop proposals is EXTENDED May 7th. For more information on the 2023 IASDR Congress, please visit https://www.iasdr2023.polimi.it

Other important dates:

03rd July 2023 – Notification to authors and feedback

07th August 2023 – Camera-ready submissions deadline for accepted submissions

9th-13th October 2023 – Congress dates

Contact us at: iasdr2023@polimi.it

Call for papers | IASDR 2023

IASDR 2023 is the tenth Congress of the International Association of Societies of Design Research. The biennial congress provides a multifaceted view of design research by exploring current agendas and emerging and future directions. 

IASDR 2023 provides opportunities for presenting and publishing a collection of high-quality peer-reviewed research papers and will organize around keynote and parallel sessions. The theme for the 2023 edition is Life-Changing Design.

Life-Changing Design

The pandemic has radically changed the lives of billions of people across the globe, impacting the way we work, study, socialize, and, ultimately, the way we live. In this post-pandemic era, the world will not be the same as before. Humanity is at a crossroads between restoration and change, deciding what it is worth to be saved and what we can and should forget.

What is the role of design in these transformation processes? And how is design renewing and transforming itself? In this regard, Life-Changing Design encourages design researchers to investigate, elaborate on, and discuss the issues and the needed changes.

IASDR 2023 in Milan

Milan is the location of IASDR 2023. Today, the city represents a naturally formed and spontaneous urban living lab where diverse players of all sectors co-create, experiment, and prototype innovative scenarios and solutions. The city acts as a gateway for Italian and international companies. Its universities host Italian and International researchers and students interested in Design, Architecture, Arts, and Culture. This location is a platform for innovation and experimentation, a natural venue to investigate whether design can impact people's lives and to what extent, supporting the congress' central theme.

Thematic outlines

[Changing] Organizations and Policies

Track chairs: Sabrina Bresciani (Politecnico di Milano), Sabine Junginger (Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts), Euiyoung Kim (Delft University of Technology), Marzia Mortati (Politecnico di Milano)

Over the last ten years, design literature has investigated different approaches for design to transform organizational culture in the public sector. We are interested in addressing how design is equipping itself—with approaches, methods, tools, evaluation frameworks, etc.—to support pathways to systemic transformation in the public sphere toward social justice and sustainability, challenging traditional notions of prosperity and discussing the role of design in supporting a systemic, open and multi-level governance perspective aimed at well-being.

The track [Changing] Organizations and Policies welcomes contributions encompassing but not limited to: cases and empirical studies on design as a transformational lever for policies, programmes, services, and strategies; design methods and cases that scale up sustainable practices, cross-sector partnerships, and business models; studies and experimentations on adapting modes of designing for complex systemic transitions; development of evaluation frameworks and impact measurement of design interventions for systemic (social) innovation and organizational change.

•       Service design

•       Public sector innovation

•       Sustainable transitions

•       Organizational change

•       Systemic innovation

[Changing] Products and Production

Track chairs: Chiara Colombi (Politecnico di Milano), Venere Ferraro (Politecnico di Milano), Markus Holzbach (Offenbach University of Art and Design), KwanMyung Kim (Ulsan National Institute of Science & Technology)

How will new manufacturing processes impact products and systems? How will digital fabrication and digital craft emerge as strategies to conceive, design, and produce new products and systems? How will they trigger the capability to envision new emerging futures? And will they change and create new business models?

During the last decade, the continuous development of new manufacturing processes has impacted how we think, envision, and design new products and systems. They affect the entire value chain, from basic research to the finished product and delivery. Specifically, the profusion of digital fabrication and digital craft tools and technology is transforming how we develop, upgrade, and update products.

Supporting idea creation, the value of tools applicable in the experimenting activities, the testing opportunities from prototyping to market, and the competitive advantage concerning sustainability are strategic factors of these new processes. Through them, we can speculate and envision new emerging materials, artifacts, and future scenarios with a sustainable perspective.

The track [Changing] Products and Production encourages contributions to explore the role of design practice and research in this envisioning and speculating process. And in how design can imagine a re-shored and unified manufacturing system that redesigns functions and services while integrating into urban territories.

•       ​​Advanced manufacturing

•       Digital fabrication

•       New products, processes, business models 

•       Emerging materials 

Identities and [Changing] Identities

Track chairs: José Allard (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile), Anna Barbara (Politecnico di Milano), Valeria Bucchetti (Politecnico di Milano)

Will the design system be emancipated enough to contribute to the transformation processes of identities in different cultural contexts?

The notion of identity constitutes a fundamental axis for reflecting on design's renewal and transformations. Identity is not immutable; it transforms with growth and social changes according to a multicultural and intercultural perspective.

The track Identities and [Changing] Identities welcomes contributions reflecting on: cultural identity (the identity roots of design, the authorial identities with their poetics, identity hegemony with the implications of a 'monolingual' of design, and reductive forms of identity homologation); the identity-alterity relationship (in its theoretical formulation, in the local dimension and related to other cultures, and in elaborating actions aimed at overcoming the fixed identities of gender, class, and religion); and identity concerning translation processes (an area that reflects on the revision of systems, tools, and programs for translating and communicating identity).

•       Alterity

•       Translation processes

•       Identity systems

•       Homologation

•       Social design

[Changing] Ecosystems

Track chairs: İdil Gaziulusoy (Aalto University), Valentina Rognoli (Politecnico di Milano), Carlo Vezzoli (Politecnico di Milano)

The transition towards sustainability requires radical changes in how we produce, consume, and live. The prospect of sustainability necessarily places the very model of development under discussion. In fact, we need to learn how to live better and, at the same time, reduce our environmental footprint to respect the ecosystems. Here, we can clearly see the link between the environmental, socio-ethical, and economic dimensions of sustainability.

Within this framework, the international institutional context has recently recognized Design for Sustainability as one of the key disciplines to foster sustainability. In fact, Design for Sustainability has enlarged its scope and field of action over time.

The track [Changing] Ecosystems invites research projects, case studies, and critical reflections on: design for sustainable materials and energy, product design for sustainability, product-service system design for sustainability, design for sustainable Distributed Economies, design for Circular Economy, design for sustainable business models, design for sustainable informal economies, design for sustainability transition, and design in the context of sustainability transitions (theory, methods and tools).

•       Design for sustainability

•       Circular Design

•       Materials for transition

[Changing] Communities

Track chairs: Susana Gonzaga (Universidade da Madeira), Ki Young Nam (Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology), Agnese Rebaglio (Politecnico di Milano), Daniela Selloni (Politecnico di Milano)

How can we innovate collaborative processes and codesign knowledge, methods, and tools while considering current socio-technological transformations? How can we raise awareness and engagement about urgent issues of public interest within individuals and communities? How can we enhance shared decision-making and democratic participation in the communities of practice? Which are the emerging roles (and rules) for individuals, communities, and public and private entities in these processes? And how can design contribute to defining, facilitating, and guiding them in support of a systemic transition that considers the sustainability of (both) social and environmental innovation?

The track [Changing] Communities encourages contributions to explore how design can trigger a sustainable behavioural change in human beings while contributing to empowering communities in developing social and environmental innovations.

•       Behavioural change

•       Social innovation

•       Sustainable social innovation

•       Codesign

•       Coproduction

[Changing] Education

Track chairs: Elena Caratti (Politecnico di Milano), Silvia Ferraris (Politecnico di Milano), Silke Lange (Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London)

What inspires change in design education? What changes does design education enhance? What is missing in design education today? And what and where are the problems?

Design as both practice and academic discipline is so complexly entwined in the matrix of contemporary society that it cannot avoid change. Many design educators are fully aware of the demand for change, but its multiple aspects may be confounding. While the known is comforting, change is uncertain and threatening. Design education traditions may be tenaciously and reasonably motivated in their hold on educators' understanding and performance. Since change demands attention, adaptation, planning, and visioning, it drives maintenance in service for the future without abruptly excluding the consolidated knowledge that grounds it.

The track [Changing] Education encourages contributions to foster clarity and identity for design educational goals, attention to robustly grounded but dynamic educational planning, and openness to plurality and differentiation. Contributors, on their side, are not expected to provide consensus but to offer critical perspectives.

•       Education methods and tools

•       Education paradigms, goals, and perspectives

•       Collaboration in education

•       Inclusive and/or participatory education

[Changing] Spaces and Services

Track chairs: Brian Dixon (Ulster University), Davide Fassi (Politecnico di Milano), Daniela Sangiorgi (Politecnico di Milano), Lou Yongqi (Tongji University)

How can we examine and extend discourse connecting spatial and service design as an integrated knowledge base?

We are interested in exploring how both approaches are jointly influencing the development of contemporary ways of living within complex urban settings, with a particular focus on easing the relationship among functions; triggering generative and transformative actions; enhancing public participation; supporting the emergence of new publics; and guaranteeing inclusivity and diversity to stimulate positive attitudes. 

The track [Changing] Spaces and Services welcomes contributions presenting theories, methods, and projects of integrated design interventions where spaces are drivers for the transformation of current services and where services are enablers of an innovative typology of spaces. These will investigate studies and offer reflections that consider design interventions across all scales (micro, meso, and macro) and other disciplines too.

•       Service + spatial design

•       New publics

•       Transformative/generative actions

•       Integrated knowledge

[Changing] Interactions

Track chairs: Mauro A. Ceconello (Politecnico di Milano), Sangwon Lee (Yonsei University), Panos Markopoulos (Eindhoven University of Technology), Margherita Pillan (Politecnico di Milano)

How do technologies change us? How can we shape technology to respond to social and contextual changes? And how do augmented, virtual and mixed environments and experiences impact communities, processes, and professions?

Developing digital technologies and their applications is decisive in creating solutions apt to face the present societal and environmental crises and building desirable future scenarios. While the digital transition calls for changes in behaviours, mindsets, cultures, and organizations, these changes influence it. Here, digital and physical are progressively intertwined, enabling the creation of interoperable services and giving rise to a new generation of augmented, virtual, and mixed environments and experiences.

Nowadays, the responsibility of Interaction Design is to devise opportunities for valuable and desirable innovation and give sense to technology-based transformations by foreseeing its impact and involving the social actors in co-creating innovative solutions.

The track [Changing] Interaction welcomes contributions reflecting on:

•       Interaction design

•       Behaviour change

•       Physical-digital experiences

•       AR-VR

[Changing] Heritage

Track chairs: Rodolfo Maffeis (Politecnico di Milano), Marco Mason (Northumbria University – Newcastle), Raffaella Trocchianesi (Politecnico di Milano)

Can design research offer new approaches to the knowledge, preservation, and cultural experience of Cultural Heritage? And can it also help to activate participation dynamics to reintegrate relevant portions of the Cultural Heritage that have remained excluded from the current development paradigm?

In this challenging time, we are coping with continuous and impetuous changes. New instability marks social and political structures, while technological growth affects them deeply. Dramatic changes related to the impact of human activities on the planet are urgently emerging as consequence of the development paradigm we have adopted until now.

Large portions of the Cultural Heritage also suffer from increasing erosion and modification. And great artistic masterpieces are being communicated and shared in new ways to suit global audiences and multiculturalism. In this context, museums and cultural sites should rethink their role, mission, and paradigm of the cultural experience. They should be open to “new” forms of museography and museology (i.e., museums and: digital transformation, post-digitality, human-centred design practices, social inclusion…).

The track [Changing] Heritage aims to stimulate the community of scholars dealing with the challenges global change poses to Cultural Heritage. We invite contributors to share their research, ideas, and experiences with:

•       Tangible and intangible heritage

•       Museums

•       Arts

•       Cultural experience

•       Design & Humanities

Submission guidelines

Full papers should be 4000-6000 words long, excluding the abstract and references. Authors should address one of the congress themes available on the website (https://iasdr2023.polimi.it) and report on complete studies or theoretical findings. Authors should demonstrate a high degree of academic scholarship, clearly articulate their research focus, provide a concise synthesis of the research context, describe the methods used to undertake the research, present the research findings, and summarize the contribution to the field.

The papers should be written and presented in English and follow the APA publication style for in-text citation and reference lists. Files should be submitted in pdf version following this template.

For the blind peer review, all submissions must be anonymous and must not contain the name(s) of the author(s) or any references to institutions. Before uploading your paper, please ensure to remove these.

Each author can submit a maximum of 2 papers.

Important dates

Review process

An international review panel will double-blind peer review all the submissions. This review panel will include IASDR-appointed members. After the review period, we will notify all authors of acceptance or rejection via email.

Selection of the papers will base on alignment with the congress sub-themes, originality and significance, rigor, coherence, clarity, and communication.

For the blind peer review, all submissions must be anonymous and must not contain the name(s) of the author(s) or any references to institutions. Before uploading your paper, please ensure to remove any references.

We will collect the contributions in a digital proceedings with an ISSN/ISBN and a DOI reference number and will publish the proceedings Open Access as a series in the DRS Digital Library following this format: doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2023.000. DRS Digital Library publications are part of the Digital Commons network and appear in Google Scholar searches. 

Submissions that are not presented at the congress will be excluded from the official proceedings. To be included in the proceedings, at least one of the authors should register, attend, and present at the congress (with a strong preference for on-site presenting). All accepted and revised submissions must be formatted in this template and submitted to the congress system by the deadline. Please check important dates at https://iasdr2023.polimi.it.