IDIS Research Chair

The first Research Chair in design to be created in a French Higher Education Art College, the IDIS Research Chair is a factor for social, cultural and technological innovation, a means to seek the support of the industrial heritage of the region and to pass on a culture of design to companies.

The Research Chair’s primary objectives are :

• To increase, through design, the added value of a given product, by creating new forms and new values (of use, of sustainability, cultural and heritage values…) in the traditional sectors of activity in the Champagne- Ardennes region.
• To develop research in design on the territory from subjects linked to social innovation,
• To structure new partnerships between industries, companies / associations, institutions / research teams and higher education establishments.

In the national context, innovation through design positions itself on a political level as an important cultural and productive issue. The IDIS Research Chair is a new actor in the Region on a scientific and artistic level, and also on an economic and social level. It now seeks to ensure that its activity becomes a permanent fixture and a tool for development in the region.

It is directed by a product designer and professor researcher from the ESAD, Véronique Maire, and calls upon young designers who deploy its activity and its programmes on the territory. It also engages the pedagogical team and Masters Design students from the ESAD Reims.

The  networking of different key producing entities of the territory should allow the creation of new industrial or crafts objects, and eventually the diversification of the industrial production activities of the Region.

There are three key stages in its activity :

1- Prospection phase (2015), aiming to identify and map out the networks of industrial, academic and voluntary sector stakeholders in the Champagne Ardennes region. It has been made official with an interactive website designed to be used by contributors.

2- Production phase (2015-2017), during which research projects are taken on and overseen on a pedagogical level, with industrial firms, with craftspeople and the territory’s research centres. In 2016, objects will be produced, research days will take place,  and an IDIS Research Chair Prize will be created.

3- Restitution phase (2017) finalises the first productions of the IDIS Research Chair : publication of a work, exhibitions of productions in the Region and in international design networks (Paris, Saint-Etienne, Milan).

Companies that wish to become partners should contact the IDIS Research Chair.