Design Engineering for Innovation Winter School

Join the Design Engineering for Innovation Winter School to sharpen your design thinking skills and create cutting-edge solutions to today’s challenges.

Programme Overview

Design engineers are problem solvers who bridge the gap between traditional engineering and design to create innovative solutions to modern challenges. It's a highly creative discipline that draws on knowledge of manufacturing techniques, product development, technical design and rapid prototyping to bring new innovations to market, and to improve existing products and the processes used for making them.

This winter school will equip students with insights on creativity, innovation and design through inspiring lectures and practical workshops.  Students will be introduced with evolutionary, revolutionary and experimental methods for design-led innovation modules such as AI and data-centric sustainability, clean tech innovation, smart city, etc., which echo their existing training in Engineering domains, and provide further inspiration for innovation. Design Thinking investigates the evolution of key design processes, their advantages and limits in practice, and propose the integrated and comprehensive design process. Students will benefit from learning about the latest development of research in creativity and innovation methods with AI application, as well as a selection of effective techniques to enhance their creativity in personal and professional capacity. In addition, students will gain real-life design experience in a fun and practical approach for team prototyping and presentation in a selection of design activities, to enhance their understanding of design thinking and to break down the barriers between theoretical planning and practical achievements. Students will also be introduced to the latest development of human factors in design research, as well as leadership, innovation and enterprise, with the focus on evolving interactions between innovators and systems. The value of the application of interactive design practice will be investigated through growingly popular domains such as design for wellbeing, future-oriented innovation, and interactive system innovation.

Students, as future innovators, are encouraged to lead the change, but not subject to it. The talk on design for future includes elements of Future Products, Human Factors, and Development for Global Markets. Students are challenged to explore the future impact of their present design activities, and therefore, encouraged to learn and understand the importance of strategies for innovation research and design engineering.

Apply learning through group project

Practical insights are expected to be obtained from the hands-on realisation of design for students in a dedicated prototyping environment with pioneering facilities and techniques. In the dedicated Design Engineering ACE workshop, students will have access to mechanical, electronics and digital manufacturing facilities, wood and metal workshops, and hand-on demonstration and tutoring supports. The creative design ideas will be transformed into realised subjects through guided concept design and fast prototyping.

Students will present their team projects on design and innovation, integrated with entrepreneurship elements on the last day of the winter school.

Upon completion of this winter school, students will:

• Have understood the key innovation methods, and obtained knowledge on creativity and a selection of creative thinking techniques which benefit future academic and professional development.
• Have developed strategies for utilising design thinking to identify and attempt to solve global challenges with design idea generation.
• Have gained understanding of the latest research outcome on human factors in design, including how to apply creative design in specific industries, and human-system interaction.
• Have understood strategies for conducting academic research, learning and translating ideas into design solutions have gained understanding of importance of future-oriented design.
• Have experienced the value of design in fields data-centric innovation and interactive systems.
• Have understood the styles and roles of leadership, and developed strategies to nurture and enhance their leadership as future innovators.
• Have gained practical hand-on experience in a dedicated and guided environment, where design ideas are transformed from concepts into prototypes ready for further development in details.
• Have understood and experienced the whole innovative design process, from concept design to fast prototyping, in order to tackle an identified challenge in teams.
• Have developed strategies for communicating and presenting design thinking and practice.
• Have understood the key opportunities and challenges from real-life experiences shared by outstanding entrepreneurs. 

About the Dyson School of Design Engineering

The Dyson School of Design Engineering is the 10th and newest engineering department at Imperial College London. It was founded in 2014 and assisted by a generous donation from the James Dyson Foundation.  Design Engineering is the fusion of design thinking, and engineering knowledge and practice within a culture of innovation and enterprise, to help solve global problems with emphasis on sustainability, entrepreneurship and societal impact.

Interdisciplinarity and cross-cutting skills are an integral part of what differentiates the Dyson School of Design Engineering.  Design engineers weave together different disciplines, methods and ways of thinking for a uniquely multifaceted approach to solving complex problems. By being able to think both like engineers and like designers, and by engaging with expertise in mathematics, psychology, policymaking, business, and other fields, our students enter the world uniquely equipped to innovate effectively, lead responsibly, and manage the complexity inherent to product innovation and to tackling major global challenges. 

The students on the Winter School will benefit from the interdisciplinary excellence of research and teaching, the interaction with real-world leaders in design, innovation, and enterprise, as well as practical prototyping capacities offered by the Dyson School of Design Engineering.

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