The 2ndcycle degree programme aims to train expert designers in design innovation forthe creation of new products and services (product-service systems).Consistently with this general objective, the main characteristic of the degreeprogramme is its multidisciplinary nature, allowing 2nd cyclegraduates to acquire competences and knowledge relating to:
- productand service innovation processes;
- theplanning and management of strategic design projects in production contexts;
- productionprocesses and major industrial technologies (from materials to interactiveprocesses, and needs relating to distribution, use and divestment);
- ICTtechnologies (from the design of usable interfaces to the design of interactivedigital services);
- digitalmanufacturing processes and technologies;
- currentcultural phenomena and related social changes.
Given thebroad range of objectives, the programme is organised into varioussub-curricula, focusing on product innovation, with particular reference tocontemporary industrial contexts, or the design of intangible products andservices in tertiary organisations and urban public services. Given the broad range of topics and the multidisciplinarynature of the knowledge and competences, the Degree Programme includes aconsistent part of workshop activities. Each workshop focuses on a qualifyingdimension of design: the process, the technologies, the structures, systems,perception and representation. With a choice of design and research topics, theworkshops become the setting for developing the exploratory and experimentalnature of these graduates, improving methods and instruments to work in designeven marked by high complexity and highly innovative solutions.
This corearea of the curriculum, covering Design and Multimedia Communication, isintegrated from year one (with different weights according to the chosencurriculum), with learning activities in technological and engineering subjectsas well as human and social sciences, helping to acquire the knowledge neededto understand key design constraints. In this sense, the Degree Programmeoffers the possibility to develop the competences required to work as productand process designer or services designer.
In the caseof product design, the core part of the Degree Programme is supported bymonographic course units mainly in technological and engineering subjects;while for services design, the programme includes mainly monographic courseunits in human and social sciences, psychology and economics. The monographictheory course units aim to enhance the students' specialist engineering andproduction knowledge, as well as cultural guidance skills. In year two, theprogramme focuses on the consolidation of design practices, again specificallyapplied to innovative and sustainable products and systems or innovative,participatory services.
The DegreeProgramme pay great importance to design research, and this competence isdeveloped by students particularly in the final laboratory in year two, aimingto study a design issue aiming to become the basis for the final research work,assessed during the final examination.
The keylearning areas of the Degree Programme are:
1. Advanceddesign understood as the integration between the formal and cultural qualitiesof products and the expression, symbols and meanings of the produced goods andservices.
2. Therelationship between design and feasibility, i.e. the dimension linked toadvanced production processes, digital production technologies, new materialsand the so-called "4.0" evolution of the production chain.
3. Thecentrality of the “product-system”, understood as design seeking to connect thematerial and physical dimension with the intangible and communicative dimensionof the service of every product, user involvement and the collaboration betweenall the different types of knowledge that help to produce it.
4. Thecontinuous integration between product and user behaviour: man at the centre ofdesign, not only in its ergonomic dimension but also in the mental dimensionand in its interpersonal relationship.5. The aware use of designtechnologies, representation and production.
