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Carl-Henric Nilsson
Senior lecturer
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Design as an integrating factor in an international cross‐disciplinary innovation course
Author
Summary, in English
Despite this need, however, undergraduate or graduate courses that mix students with different academic backgrounds allowing them to freely synthesize their domain specific knowledge in new contexts are rare. By combining design, business and engineering students in an innovation course, and by letting the students apply their knowledge to current market needs, innovators can be fostered, innovations generated and entrepreneurs born. Furthermore, mixing cultures and mindsets may stimulate creativity, leading to novel and unexpected ideas.
In this paper, we present a novel graduate course on innovation, which was developed in spring 2012, and which has since been executed three times on an annual basis. The course is international and multi-disciplinary in terms of students, teachers and subjects. The course is six (6) weeks long and held in China, with Swedish and Chinese students collaborating in multidisciplinary teams. The novelty of the course lies in the mixture of students and in the fact that design is seen as an integrative factor in the course. The mix of design, business and engineering students is powerful since knowledge in these three disciplines mirrors the three central characteristics of a successful innovation – feasibility, viability and desirability.
Department/s
- Industrial Design
- Department of Automatic Control
- Department of Business Administration
Publishing year
2015
Language
English
Pages
1-19
Publication/Series
American Society of Engineering Education, International Forum
Document type
Conference paper
Publisher
American Society of Engineering Education
Topic
- Other Engineering and Technologies
- Economics and Business
- Design
Keywords
- design
- business
- technology
- Teaching and learning HE
- entrepreneurship
- Innovation
Conference name
American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference 2015
Conference date
2015-06-14 - 2015-06-17
Conference place
Seattle, WA, United States
Status
Published
Research group
- LCCC