Uniform design innovation: Bridging academia and industry through multidisciplinary collaboration

Abstract

The article presents a proposal for a multidisciplinary and multistakeholder learning and collaborative model that connects the worlds of business and academia through the presentation of an experimentation. The model is presented through an experimentation of uniform design, led by University of Bologna, commissioned by the railway company Trenitalia Tper, and in collaboration with the Polytechnic University of Milan. The project aimed to dress the staff of the company by involving students and faculty from the two schools of fashion, product, and service courses with local businesses. The experimentation presented here aims to highlight the ways in which a learning model involving professionals from the world of research and industrial production can enable the elaboration of outputs in line with the current challenges of the contemporary fashion system. The experimentation, along with the proposed method and model, aims at testing and verifying the relevance of the so-called collective intelligence in design-driven innovation processes, particularly those of ‘open innovation’. The proposed experiment confirms the relationship between collective intelligence, as a result of the combined knowledge and expertise of a diverse group, and innovation readiness in enterprises. In this light, a model is presented that, through co-design processes, can propose new strategies for an industry transformation, in a challenging application theme such as technical clothing and uniforms, where what is worn is loaded with values and symbols in society.