Maffei S., Mager B. and Sangiorgi D., Innovation through Service Design. From Research and Theory to a Network of Practice. A users’ driven perspective, Joining Forces Conference, 21-23 September, Helsinki, 2005 (original) (raw)

This paper wants to deepen the peculiarity of the service economy and of its innovation modes in order to investigate and propose a strategic role for design research and education. The basic question is if we can create innovation through services development and how Service Design can contribute to the definition of a renewed and integrated innovation model and approach. To validate this statement in particular the authors refers to an emerging discipline, Service Design, that was born in the early 90’s (Manzini, 1993; Erlhoff et. al., 1997) starting from the awareness of the lack of an organic and autonomous design culture in contrast with the dominant economic vision of service sector and the consequent demand for more conscious design shapes. This intuition opened a new experimental and research area that have been framed by PhD researches (Pacenti, 1998; Sangiorgi, 2004) and further developed within research and educational projects, developing dedicated design tools and methodologies. The authors describes the evolution of the Service Design research and theory till the recent start up of an international Service Design Network and illustrate the potentials of a complete multidisciplinary and integrated Service Design approach for the innovation and competitiveness of service industries and institutions.