Conversation on Design, Social Innovation and Sustainability

For over three decades Ezio Manzini has been working in the field of design for sustainability. Most recently, his interests have focused on social innovation, considered as a major driver of sustainable changes. In this perspective he started DESIS: an international network of schools of design, active in the field of design for social innovation and sustainability.

Presently, he is President of DESIS Network and Honorary Professor at the Politecnico di Milano. He has been guest professor in several design schools world-wide, as (in the past decade): Elisava-Design School and Engineering (Barcelona), Tongji University (Shanghai), Jiangnan University (Wuxi), University of the Arts (London), CPUT (Cape town), Parsons -The new School for Design (NYC)  

His most recent books are: “Design, When Everybody Designs”, MIT Press 2015 and “Politics of the Everyday.” Bloomsbury, 2019.

Pia McAleenan has throughout her professional career worked with teaching and development in different ways, at individual, group and organizational level. McAleenan creates structures for lifelong learning, participation and collaboration. McAleenan is head of public sector and authority collaboration, at Swedish Industrial Design Foundation, SVID. There she has managed the first Swedish policy lab, Förnyelselabbet, which gathers actors and inhabitants to visualize challenges and find ways forward through  design methodology.

Per-Anders Hillgren is professor in interaction design at the School of Arts and Communication, Malmö University and has been active in the research field of participatory design for a number of years. He is interested in how we can embrace diverse understandings of the worlds we live in and how this can go hand in hand with opportunities to change these worlds in more sustainable directions. At present he coordinates the research platform Collaborative Future-Making at Malmö University. 

Sara Bjärstorp is director of Forum for Social Innovation Sweden at Malmö University. She has a background as a researcher in English literature and Cultural studies and was Head of the School of Arts and Communication at Malmö University, 2011-2020. She has a strong interest in forms of collaboration between academia and other sectors. 

Lotta Orban is a journalist and has since 2002 worked with communication, mainly with research communication and to share research-based knowledge outside academia. Currently Lotta is a communicator at Forum for Social Innovation Sweden, at Malmö University.

The Forum for Social Innovation Sweden is a national knowledge and collaboration platform for social innovation and social enterprise in Sweden. Founded at Malmö University and developed in close collaboration with the City of Malmö since 2010. The forum today is established in regions across the country and at the five universities in Sweden from north to south: Luleå University of Technology, Umeå University, Örebro University, Jönköping University and Malmö University. The forum also collaborates internationally both within the EU and outside.  

The Forum for Social Innovation Sweden share and develop knowledge and experiences and create spaces where actors across sectors can meet and exchange ideas and best-practices in the field of social innovation.  

With research-based knowledge and methods, processes and tools for cross sectoral collaboration and social innovation, the forum support actors who want to collaborate with other organizations or sectors, or learn more about social innovation.  

Our mission is to promote social innovation as a force in reaching Agenda 2030 and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. 

Malmö University is an innovative, urban and international institute of higher education in the city centre of Malmö. Malmö University is characterised by global engagement, community involvement, and a multidisciplinary, challenge based approach to education, research and collaboration.