Design Thinking

A sense of initiative and entrepreneurship is among the most important transversal competences a graduate student can develop. This includes creativity, innovation and risk-taking, as well as the ability to plan and manage projects in order to achieve objectives.

In many cases, educational approaches intended to develop research skills focus on solving problems according to existing models, instead of investigating the complex constraints involved in real-world cases. As a consequence, graduate students may not posses the ability to define areas of possible improvements and to adjust their proposed solutions to actual real-world needs. On the other side, design is a major driving force for innovation in developed economies. Therefore, there is a need to enable academically excellent researchers to get in touch with cutting-edge, high-risk projects. Those activities cannot be conducted through iterative development based on existing solutions, but rather need to be conceived as a result of intensive design-based research.

Design thinking is a solution-focused approach to practical, creative resolution of problems. Starting with a goal, usually expressed as a better future situation, design thinking explores both present and future conditions and parameters of the problem, and alternative solutions may be explored simultaneously. This approach differs from the analytical scientific method, based on the initial analysis of all the parameters of the problem in order to create a solution. Design Thinking tackles both known and unknown aspects of the problem to discover hidden aspects and to open alternative paths to the goal. Design Thinking is incremental, and intermediate and partial solutions may become potential starting points of alternative paths, including the rephrasing or redefinition of the initial problem.