About Politecnico di Milano

Politecnico di Milano (POLIMI) was founded in 1863 and has been delivering activities related to undergraduate, graduate, post‐graduate education as well as research and consultancy activities in the field of engineering, architecture and design.

The University has always focused on the quality and innovation of its teaching and research, developing a fruitful relationship with business and productive world by means of experimental research and technological transfer.

Research has always been linked to didactics and it is a priority commitment which has allowed POLIMI to achieve high quality results at an international level as to join the university to the business world. Research constitutes a parallel path to that formed by cooperation and alliances with the industrial system.

Knowing the world in which you are going to work is a vital requirement for training students. By referring back to the needs of the industrial world and public administration, research is facilitated in following new paths and dealing with the need for constant and rapid innovation. The alliance with the industrial world allows the university to follow the vocation of the territories in which it operates and to be a stimulus for their development.

The challenge which is being met today projects this tradition which is strongly rooted in the territory beyond the borders of the country, in a relationship which is developing first of all at the European level with the objective of contributing to the creation of a single professional training market. POLIMI takes part in several research, sites and training projects collaborating with the most qualified European universities. POLIMI's contribution is increasingly being extended to other countries: from North America to Southeast Asia to Eastern Europe. Today the drive to internationalization sees POLIMI taking part into the European and world network of leading technical universities and it offers several courses beside many which are entirely taught in English.

 

About Design Department 

The POLIMI DESIGN SYSTEM includes the Department of Design, the School of Design, and POLI.design Consortium. It aims to strengthen, in research and teaching, the dialogue with different disciplines (human and social sciences, historical-artistic and scientific-technological disciplines) with the aim of redefining the perimeter of the design culture and its application contexts also in relation to the ongoing technological transformations and their impact in the medium and long term. The Design Department of the Politecnico di Milano was born in 2002 as Indaco Department (Industrial Design, Arts, Communication and Fashion), the first academic research Department focused on design in Italy. In 2013 it simply became the Design Department.

It is a research and consultancy body with a multidisciplinary focus supported by over 150 full time personnel. As part of the largest scientific-technological university in Italy it is the first academic research Department focused on design in Italy. Its core of critical-theoretical definition and operational development of research and education includes theories, methods, tools, techniques, poetic and cultures related to Design, design process, material artefacts, communication, and services.

The Department is home to concepts and ideas from different cultures, which meet, dialogue and find an environment in which they can express a shared approach and purpose; it aims to strengthen, in research and teaching, the dialogue with different disciplines (human and social sciences, historical-artistic and scientific-technological disciplines) with the aim of redefining the perimeter of the project culture and its application contexts also in relation to the ongoing technological transformations and their impact in the medium and long term. 

 

Today the Department is part of a dense network of relationships and addresses the main interlocutors in the world of research, business and civil society.  The QS World University Rankings places Politecnico di Milano fifth in the world, second in Europe and first in Italy in the Art & Design area.  

 

About Fashion-tech research and education

Experimentation and education about fashion-tech take place in the Design for the Fashion System (Master of Science) through multidisciplinary teaching aimed at growing professionals able to guide fashion design, research, production and distribution into a new paradigm. The courses focus on the effects of digital transformation in terms of design, production, consumption and sustainability. Fashion-tech projects span from textiles, clothing, wearables, sportswear to retail spaces and explore digital fabrication, integrated smart technologies, bio-materials growing and virtual technologies such as VR and AR.

Fashion-tech research supports the  integration of key enabling technologies with the European fashion and design industries with different aims: to form a European fashion-technology community  (DeFINE),  to develop  and share interdisciplinary educational modules in “Digital Entrepreneurship for the Creative Industries” (Digimood), to set a Fashion-Tech Curriculum (E4FT), to boost students employability  (FTalliance) and to stimulate the design of wearable open source products for the healthcare sector (FABCARE).