Asking the industry partners: Reflecting on the value of internships for circular design

Date

2019-07-09

Author

Mcmahon, Muireann
Bakırlıoğlu, Yekta

Metadata

Show full item record

Item Usage Stats

214
views

0
downloads

As part of Circular Design: Learning for Innovative Design for Sustainability (L4IDS) Erasmus+ Knowledge Alliance project, a series of internships were conducted in collaboration with local industry partners and interns from four different European countries. The aim of these internships is to develop an adaptable training programme focusing on design for sustainability and Circular Economy with standardised educational tools and techniques, which can be replicated by other European HEIs. The internship projects were focused on local industry partners’ real-life challenges at the time, and industry partners, interns and researcher/educators facilitating the collaboration throughout the programme. While the immediate feedback upon the completion of the internships was generally positive, as authors we were interested in long-term effects of this experience on industry partners’ professional practices. This paper introduces the internship programme and industry partners’ involvement throughout it and presents the results of interviews with key contacts from each industry partner conducted a year after the internship ended to uncover what/if any changes occurred in practice. The paper presents some considerations on developing the structure of an internship programme on sustainability, ways of collaboration among industry partners, novice designers and universities, observed and potential effects on business practices, and limitations in implementation.

Subject Keywords

Design education,, Industry collaboration,, Knowledge exchange,, Design for sustainability,, Capacity building

URI

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1hP_zm-o4Pm3tqOS2RKZPgFd0CQ_CzIpY
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/88437

DOI

https://doi.org/10.21606

Conference Name

DRS learn X design 2019: Insider knowledge conference, (9 - 12 Temmuz 2019)

Collections

Department of Industrial Design, Conference / Seminar

Suggestions

OpenMETU
Core

Transforming and prolonging design lifespans: design education cases for sustainability Doğan, Çağla (2017-11-10) This paper aims to present an approach focusing on design education for sustainability through providing two exemplary cases from third-year industrial design projects. The main themes explored in these projects involve personalization via design transformation, adaption and upgrading during design, use and post-use phases. The first project developed and facilitated at Carleton University, the School of Industrial Design mainly addresses the key theme of transformation of LED lighting from indoors to outdo...
Training the next generation of designers for a sustainable future: action research on the circular design internship Bakırlıoğlu, Yekta; De Eyto, Adam (null; 2018-06-25) This paper introduces the first internship programme in University of Limerick (UL), Ireland, which is a part of two-year collaborative action research of four subsequent internships, co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union. The research focuses on training novice designers for challenges and real-life complexities in addressing issues of sustainability through design. The internship aims to create the environment for interns to self-learn and experience tools and techniques for Circular D...
Concept development for vehicle design education projects carried out in collaboration with industry Börekçi, Naz Ayşe Güzide Z.; Kaygan, Pınar; Hasdoğan, Gülay Fatma (Elsevier BV; 2016-06-17) This paper describes the concept development process of three vehicle design team projects carried out in successive years in our fourth year undergraduate studio course, in collaboration with industry. The problem areas for all three projects were unfamiliar to student teams, and our collaboration required close involvement of the firms, for their technical expertise and design feedback. Our framework and strategies for this process involved: user research conducted in the field; group discussions for anal...
Learning about others: Developing an interdisciplinary approach in design education Demir, Özümcan; Kaygan, Pınar (2017-06-09) Recently we witness a rising interest in interdisciplinary collaboration in both industrial design and engineering education. Since developing technology and innovation invites more complex design problems that are usually beyond the professional skills and competences of a single person, learning how to work in interdisciplinary teams becomes a central concern within the undergraduate programs of these fields. With the aim of contributing to interdisciplinary design education, this paper explores a fourwee...
Online studio in the industrial design education: the implications of kibis as the organizational communication and knowledge management system Akar, Evren; Turhan, Senem; Özgen Koçyıldırım, Dalsu; Coskun, Aykut; Oraklibel, Renk Dimli (2012-02-11) In order to explore the potentials of Computer Supported Collaborative Learning and Collaborative Design systems for industrial design education curriculum, the Department of Industrial Design at the Middle East Technical University has developed an online design studio called KIBIS. This paper will present the findings of a study in which KIBIS has been implemented within the context of a first year design studio project. In this process, questionnaires with students and semi-structured interviews with tut...

Citation Formats

M. Mcmahon and Y. Bakırlıoğlu, “Asking the industry partners: Reflecting on the value of internships for circular design,” presented at the DRS learn X design 2019: Insider knowledge conference, (9 - 12 Temmuz 2019), 2019, Accessed: 00, 2021. [Online]. Available: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1hP_zm-o4Pm3tqOS2RKZPgFd0CQ_CzIpY.