**Research for Development**

Venere Ferraro Pirjo Kääriäinen Paz Morer-Camo Anke Pasold Editors

# Materialising the Future

A Learning Path to Understand, Develop and Apply Emerging Materials and Technologies

# **Research for Development**

#### **Series Editors**

Emilio Bartezzaghi, Milan, Italy Giampio Bracchi, Milan, Italy Adalberto Del Bo, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy Ferran Sagarra Trias, Department of Urbanism and Regional Planning, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain Francesco Stellacci, Supramolecular NanoMaterials and Interfaces Laboratory (SuNMiL), Institute of Materials, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Vaud, Switzerland Enrico Zio, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy

Ecole Centrale Paris, Paris, France

The series Research for Development serves as a vehicle for the presentation and dissemination of complex research and multidisciplinary projects. The published work is dedicated to fostering a high degree of innovation and to the sophisticated demonstration of new techniques or methods.

The aim of the Research for Development series is to promote well-balanced sustainable growth. This might take the form of measurable social and economic outcomes, in addition to environmental benefits, or improved efficiency in the use of resources; it might also involve an original mix of intervention schemes.

Research for Development focuses on the following topics and disciplines:

Urban regeneration and infrastructure, Info-mobility, transport, and logistics, Environment and the land, Cultural heritage and landscape, Energy, Innovation in processes and technologies, Applications of chemistry, materials, and nanotechnologies, Material science and biotechnology solutions, Physics results and related applications and aerospace, Ongoing training and continuing education.

Fondazione Politecnico di Milano collaborates as a special co-partner in this series by suggesting themes and evaluating proposals for new volumes. Research for Development addresses researchers, advanced graduate students, and policy and decision-makers around the world in government, industry, and civil society.

THE SERIES IS INDEXED IN SCOPUS

Venere Ferraro · Pirjo Kääriäinen · Paz Morer-Camo · Anke Pasold Editors

# Materialising the Future

A Learning Path to Understand, Develop and Apply Emerging Materials and Technologies

*Editors*  Venere Ferraro Department of Design Politecnico di Milano Milan, Italy

Paz Morer-Camo Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials University of Navarra Donostia-San Sebastián, Spain

Pirjo Kääriäinen Department of Design Aalto University Espoo, Finland

Anke Pasold Copenhagen School of Design and Technology Copenhagen, Denmark

ISSN 2198-7300 ISSN 2198-7319 (electronic) Research for Development ISBN 978-3-031-25206-8 ISBN 978-3-031-25207-5 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25207-5

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2023. This book is an open access publication. **Open Access** This book is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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# **Disclaimer**

DATEMATS project (Knowledge & Technology Transfer of Emerging Materials & Technologies through a Design-Driven Approach Agreement Number: 600777-EPP-1-2018-1-IT-EPPKA2-KA) is co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union. The European Commission's support for the production of this book does not constitute an endorsement of the contents which reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

## **About This Book**

The book contains the theoretical knowledge at the base of new Emerging Materials and Technologies (EM&Ts), namely: Interactive Connected Smart Materials, wearable-based (ICS), Nanomaterials, Advanced Growing Materials, and Experimental Wood Based Materials. It will describe the unique design teaching method developed within the context of the European Project DATEMATS, the results of the creative workshops executed in the four HEIs partners of the project, stressing the pros and the cons of the method and, the improvement for further development.

It provides a framework to design with and for the new materials and to educate designers and give them the right experience on taking advantages of the opportunities offered by EM&Ts. Contemporary it explains the developed method intended to transmit to companies the knowledge generated in research centres and universities.

The Book is divided into two main parts:

The first section is dedicated to the main findings generated by the Project DATEMATS: the new unique teaching and design method to design with and for EM&Ts (Chap. "Designing with and for Emerging Materials: Framework, Tools, and Context of a Unique Design Method"); a new tool to support the design process in the domain of the EM&Ts (Chap. "How Do We Approach and Involve Companies in Design Fields? Lessons Learned from Surveys and Participative Workshops"); the mains issues met by companies while collaborating with the academia from onside and the academia perspective from the other (Chap. "A Supporting Tool to Design with and for EM&Ts: The Materials Toolkit"); the new method useful to be used by academia to transfer the generated knowledge to the companies (Chap. "Transferring Knowledge from Academia to the Companies: A New Method").

The second part is instead dedicated to the field studies that is the application of the design method and tools to the four design challenges launched by companies and applied to the four EM&Ts (Chaps. "Designing with and for Emerging Materials: Framework, Tools, and Context of a Unique Design method"–"Transferring Knowledge from Academia to the Companies: A New Method"); the reflection related to the way through which academia can/should establish a long-lasting collaboration with companies.

The two main sections are preceded by an introduction to the main context of the book, and it is followed by a critical reflection on the learning process and a glossary composed of the vocabulary set by the researchers. An appendix with the projects explored into the section two completes the book.

# **Introducing Emerging Materials and technologies (EM&Ts) areas and their theoretical framework**

The present text introduces the main objective, framework, and areas of investigation of the DATEMATS project (Knowledge & Technology Transfer of Emerging Materials & Technologies through a Design-Driven Approach Agreement Number: 600777-EPP-1-2018-1-IT-EPPKA2-KA) co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union. The research carried out in three years aimed to transfer and implement a design-led teaching method for students with a background in design and engineering in Emerging Materials and Technologies (EM&Ts) and boost knowledge and technology transfers from Academia and research centres to industry. This investigation started from the evidence that the landscape of EM&Ts, through which industries stimulate innovation processes and foster creativity, requires new interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches in education, industry, and business. Specifically, researchers from four high-ranked universities (School of Design of Politecnico di Milano, Chemarts, Aalto University, Copenhagen School of Design and Technology, University of Navarra) explored such an issue concerning four areas of EM&Ts: (1) *ICS Materials*, Interactive, Connected, Smart solutions able to communicate and respond to external stimuli, linked to another entity or to an external source, and programmable not only through software; (2) *Nanomaterials*, Nanoscaled structures, or composite blends whose properties are altered by surface and/or substrate doping thereof. Matter controlled at a molecular level, on a scale of 1 to 100 nanometres; (3) *Experimental Wood-based Materials*, materials that are processed either chemically or mechanically from trees or other plants for innovative applications. The materials include cellulose fibres, fibrils (micro- or nano-structured), and derivatives; (4) *Advanced growing Materials*, materials from controlled cultivation of organisms (bacteria, yeast, algae, mycelium, etc.) that are directly grown and/or manufactured into their subsequent form (bio-fabrication).

During the three years project, several research activities were executed to identify, and perimeter the theoretical and practical knowledge related to the four areas of EM&Ts on the one hand and generate new methods and tools on the other. (Part I of the Book)

Firstly, an in-depth literature review helped map the state of the art of the EM&Ts' themes framing the core competencies, expertise, facilities, role of different involved actors (designers, engineers, material scientists), and methodological approach used in the design process.

This literature review was conducted through Mendeley platform using five lenses: materials selection, context-specific approach, materials' behaviours and perception, and innovative applications, considering a period from 2015 to 2020.

One hundred forty-one articles delineated a rich panorama within the four EM&Ts stressing an overall agreement on the cross-disciplinarity being the most significant innovation potential and the lack of systematised methods and approaches to sustain the complexity and the intersection of diversified disciplines.

The analysis made evident the necessity of a new method to support the designer in dealing with EM&Ts, considering the cultural and social aspects of the design process aimed at developing demonstrators/products able to inspire new business.

Therefore, a shared ground document was elaborated to describe the common issues and aspects of the four EM&Ts.

The findings were formalised in a logical framework for an original design method, and it was used as a blueprint for the setting of the unique method in the four EM&Ts area.

In this regard, the Chapter 1 will illustrate and describe the results of the literature review, the re-elaboration of the contents into the unique method articulated in three phases (understanding, shaping, and applying) useful to both design and teach how to shape the four EM&Ts and a new tool called 'integration card' to support the creative process.

While understanding and setting the theoretical knowledge in the academic field, a survey submitted to more than one hundred companies in five different countries (Italy, Spain, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark) was elaborated.

This analysis lays into one of the other primary purposes of the project: to strengthen Academia's third mission to transfer knowledge outside researchers' borders and help companies to embrace innovation.

Indeed, in response to the economic and societal challenges we face today, companies are increasingly looking to new methodologies linking together consumers, designers, technologists, and other stakeholders in new ways to enhance and accelerate their investment to create a competitive advantage.

The survey was then set to understand how to effectively transfer the knowledge from Academia to companies by supporting them to exploit the results achieved in Academia and generate new innovative products and services.

The questions were framed to collect information regarding companies' specific interests and needs related to EM&T, internal methods to manage knowledge related to them, and the channels and tools they would prefer to use.

To better grasp such a complex issue, we also conducted a qualitative analysis done with the Academia to identify the preferred channels to transfer knowledge.

Chapter 2 will illustrate the quantitative and qualitative analysis results, highlighting the barriers experienced by Academia and companies by suggesting alternative ways to promote better collaborations.

One of the main relevant findings is the willingness of the companies to touch with hand the results, likewise, having product samples, prototypes, and technical briefs to be able to envision how to use them to improve their products, services, and processes.

For this reason, the consortium decided to elaborate a material toolkit called 'EM&Ts transfer toolkit' to facilitate the understanding and application potentials of Emerging Materials and Technologies (EM&Ts).

The EM&Ts toolkit is a collection of tangible samples displaying five case studies for each of the four EM&Ts areas approached in the project: Advanced Growing EM&Ts; Experimental Wood-based EM&Ts; Interactive Connected Smarts (ICS) Wearable-based EM&Ts; Nanomaterial EM&Ts. The collection of materials samples, a total of twenty (20), is not exhaustive but of illustrative nature to trigger interest in emerging materials or reconsider known physical matter under a new perspective.

The Toolkit is the object of Chapter 3, and it is framed by following the same logic of the design process that is understanding, shaping, and applying. The text will illustrate and describe how the Toolkit is composed, in which section is divided, and describe the continuous iterative process through which the Toolkit was created and evaluated.

Finally, Part I of the book will close with Chapter 4, covering another method developed within the project lifespan: the 'knowledge transfer method', a guide to facilitate the unidirectional transfer of EM&T from Academia to Industry. This method combines a Learning stage -to explain the fundamentals of the EM&T- and an Applying phase to explain specific strategies for coming up with ideas to find new opportunities that link the emerging EM&T and the company's product strategy.

This chapter contains a review of articles reflecting the different practices carried out for the transfer of knowledge between Academia and Industry in order, the main channels used, and the barriers identified. It describes the new method and its validation during four half-day workshops involving 94 companies.

The Part II of the book is dedicated to the validation of the main results of the research project within academia context namely: the new design (teaching) method, the integration card tool, and the EM&Ts toolkit.

The evaluation and application were performed during four interdisciplinary challenges, international learning experience involving students and teaching staff from the universities involved in the project. The interdisciplinary EM&Ts challenge was in the format of a workshop made of a combination of hands-on experimentation, design activities, and lectures and presentations by the teaching staff of the four universities and by partnering companies. About thirty students worked together in multidisciplinary teams to find solutions for a challenge launched by a real brief set by companies to produce product concepts, prototypes.

The Chapters 5, 6, 7, and 8 will explain in detail how the methods and tools were used and applied in each of the five days of workshops, the concepts generated, the results of a questionnaire submitted to both students and involved companies to verify if and how the methods and tools were effective or not to train the professionals of the future and generate innovative solutions.

# **Contents**

# **Editors and Contributors**

### **About the Editors**

**Venere Ferraro, Ph.D.** in Industrial Design, is an Associate Professor at the Design Department of Politecnico di Milano. She has been Visiting Researcher at the University of New South Wales of Sydney (2006) and at the Media Lab of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2009) where she runs research on Wearable Systems with the lens on design-driven and user-oriented approaches. She is a Member of the Experience and Interaction Design Research Lab; She participated in several International and National research, and she has been the principal Investigator of the research project POD: Plurisensorial (SAFeRA 2014 joint call). Venere is currently the Coordinator of the European Project 'DATEMATS' (KA2-2018). Her main research activity is focused on the role of interaction design in the use of disruptive technology (Wearable and smart textile). In particular, on how to exploit the potential of digital technologies to design experiential systems in both the private and public sectors. What characterises her research is human-centred design. The research interests lie in the field of wearable devices, smart interactive systems for well-being with particular attention to tools and methods for changing user behaviour. She's the author of several international publications, and she holds International, National Patents and models.

**Pirjo Kääriäinen** is Associate Professor of Design and Materialities at Aalto University's School of Arts, Design, and Architecture. Her background is in textile design and manufacturing. Together with professor Tapani Vuorinen she has facilitated the interdisciplinary CHEMARTS collaboration between the School of Arts, Design, and Architecture (ARTS) and the School of Chemical Engineering (CHEM) since 2011. CHEMARTS aims to inspire students and researchers to explore design-driven approaches in materials research and to create future-oriented concepts, applications, and business seeds for a more sustainable world of materials.

**Anke Pasold** is an Associate professor at the Material Design Lab at the Copenhagen School of Design and Technology, where she is developing the methodological and technological side of the lab and is structuring new material-educational programmes. With a background in Architecture and Cross-disciplinary design, her research focus is on material practice, in particular on advanced design methodologies, material formation, and fabrication processes, which she explores by means of experimental prototypes—making things tangible between the digital and the physical towards integrated, applied solutions.

**Paz Morer-Camo** is a Professor at the University of Navarra—Tecnun (Spain). She holds a Ph.D. (1991) in Architecture from the University of Navarra. Specialised in Computer Design, her doctoral thesis focused on the realistic representation of 3D models and simulation of virtual environments using computational techniques. She is currently the coordinator of the Industrial Design Engineering degree and is responsible for the Industrial Design area. Currently, she lectures on 'Artistic Drawing', 'Technical Drawing', 'Sustainable Engineering' and 'Design Methodology' to Bachelor students and coordinator of the subject 'Ethical challenges in Artificial Intelligence' to Master students. She has participated in more than 25 research projects subsidised by different government entities. She has participated in more than 35 international conferences, and she was chairman on 5 international conferences. She is the editor of 3 books. She spent three months as a researcher at MIT (Cambridge-USA) in 2007 and a second one-month stay at CalPoly (California) in 2019. She has obtained three six-year research from the national committee for the assessment of the research action. She has supervised six PhD Theses and more than 100-bachelor thesis projects. She belongs to the Board of the Ingegraf Association since 2013. She was President of this association for 4 years. She is a reviewer of several scientific journals: Sensors, DYNA, and Applied Sciences between others.

#### **Contributors**

**Daniela Amandolese** Materially S.r.l. Impresa Sociale, Milano, Italy

**Robert D. Thompson Casas** Materfad, Barcelona, Spain

**Aitor Cazón-Martin** Tecnun, University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain

**Gemma Esteban** Materfad, Barcelona, Spain

**Venere Ferraro** Department of Design, Politecnico Di Milano, Milan, Italy

**Geraldine Kann** Materfad, Barcelona, Spain

**Pirjo Kääriäinen** University of Helsinki, Espoo, Finland

**Tarja-Kaarina Laamanen** Department of Design, Aalto University, Espoo, Finland

**Alba Obiols** Barcelona Design Centre, Barcelona, Spain

**Stefano Parisi** Delft University of Technology (TU Delft), Delft, Netherlands

**Anke Pasold** Copenhagen School of Design and Technology, Copenhagen, Denmark

**Veronica Sarbach** Materially S.r.l. Impresa Sociale, Milano, Italy

# **The DATEMATS Project: Methods, Tools and Frames**

# **Designing with and for Emerging Materials: Framework, Tools, and Context of a Unique Design Method**

**Venere Ferraro**

**Abstract** The present chapter describes the unique design (teaching) method developed within the European Project DATEMATS by providing a framework to design with and for new materials, educate future designers, and give them the right knowledge to take advantage of the whole spectrum of opportunities (i.e., meaning and performance) offered by EM&Ts. It firstly depicts the core knowledge at the base of new Emerging Materials and Technologies (EM&Ts), namely: Interactive Connected Smart Materials, wearable based (ICS), Nanomaterials, Advanced Growing Materials, and Experimental Wood-Based Materials. It then provides the theoretical findings of a literature review carried out to perimeter the peculiarities of the four areas, the used approaches, and methodologies; the results of a collaborative workshop aimed at re-elaborating the findings of the literature review and setting the ground for the contents of the original framework for designing and teaching EM&Ts. It finally displays the result of both the literature review and the collaborative workshop in the form of the unique method divided into three phases (understanding, shaping, and applying). It will also include a section dedicated to the tools elaborated to support the method, such as a material toolkit and integration cards. A discussion closes the text by showing the pro and cons of the new method and its further development.

#### **1 Introduction**

The topic of emerging materials and or materials, in general, has been one of the key investigating factors both in academia and in industry.

Materials are often thought of as mainly related to material science and engineering; in this perspective, the material is seen for its physical and mechanical properties such as stiffness, hardness, transparency, and in general, for the performance, it can give a final product. In a traditional design process, dealing with materials for a designer mainly means selecting the materials and choosing the right one for technical purposes (Ashby and Cebon 1993; Ashby and Johnson 2013).

V. Ferraro (B)

Department of Design, Politecnico Di Milano, Milan, Italy e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
<sup>©</sup> The Author(s) 2023

V. Ferraro et al. (eds.), *Materialising the Future*, Research for Development, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25207-5\_1

Most of the scholars' experts in materials matter, refer to the so-called 'materialdriven 'approach: exploring materials' technical/engineering properties to embody a product (Dietza et al. 2006; Jahan et al. 2010; Knauer 2014).

Conventionally, materials have been based on the 'hard' profile of materials, i.e., their technical characteristics, complying with a 'Science-led' approach (Ashby et al. 2007), and 'Top-down' approach, i.e., from the understanding of the fundamentals.

Nevertheless, materials represent a value not only to obtain better performances but also to give meaning to an artefact by enhancing its aesthetic and its expressivesensorial dimensions (Rognoli 2004, 2010; Karana et al. 2008). Materials can revitalise design, create new business opportunities, transform industrial activities, and conceive innovative solutions.

In the last two decades several attempts have been done by scholars in design discipline towards the formalisation of methods embracing design approaches rather than the mere chemical and engineering ones. The material selection is therefore not a starting point for possible applications (Pedgley 2013) but rather a process where an idea, its form and application, is generated through material understanding, mapping and selection.

From this perspective the material can drive the creative finding process by evoking ideas and opening the path to discovering opportunities of a given or new material.

Indeed, new approaches in materials for design have been emerging, since the 'soft' profile of materials have been brought to light and embodied in research and practice by a whole body of research (Rognoli and Levi 2004; Rognoli 2010; Karana et al. 2018; Van Kesteren 2010; Pedgley et al. 2016), basing on notions from prior works by Manzini (1986), Cornish (1987), and Ashby and Johnson (2002).

Many recently developed methods, tools, and procedures applied to design with and for materials are based on this (Karana et al. 2015; Ferrara and Lecce 2016).

On the other side, nowadays, the panorama of the materials is getting rich, offering new advanced and emerging materials as alternatives to traditional ones, such as smart materials, bio-based and growing materials, nanomaterials, recycled materials from organic resources, etc.

These multifaced souls of materials trigger the tension to envision new methods and approaches to fully cover the matter of designing with new emerging materials characterised by a higher level of complexity than the traditional ones.

More in detail, four areas of emerging materials (EM&Ts) are spreading and impacting the material domain recently: Interactive Connected Smart Materials, wearable based (ICS), Nanomaterials, Advanced Growing Materials, and Experimental Wood-Based Materials. Hereafter a brief description of each area follows.

*Interactive Connected Smart Materials (ICS)* are material systems able to establish a two-way exchange of information to respond to external stimuli, linked to another entity or to an external source and programmable not only through software (Parisi et al. 2018). They are mainly applied in the context of wearables that are smart electronic devices with microcontrollers embedded into clothing (i.e., e-textiles) or worn on the body as implants or accessories (Ferraro 2020).

ICS Materials peculiarity lies in its interconnected layouts made up of Inactive components, Reactive components, Active components, Interconnection, Alternative source of energy (see Fig. 1).

*Nanomaterials* are the sector of materials research and applications industry involving materials at nanoscopic scale and are of small matter.

They have nano-scaled structures, or composite blends whose properties are altered by surface and/or substrate doping thereof. The matter controlled at a molecular level, on a scale of 1–100 nm (see Fig. 2). Nanomaterials are the invisible materials able to generate extra performance to an artefact such as self-healing properties and or robustness (Morer et al. 2020).

*Experimental wood-based materials* refer to materials that are processed either chemically or mechanically from trees for innovative applications (see Fig. 3). The materials include cellulose fibres, fibrils (micro- or nano-structured) and derivatives, lignin, bark extractives, and novel combinations of these (Kääriäinen et al. 2020).

**Fig. 1** Overview of ICS materials

**Fig. 2** Nanotex: an example of nanomaterials

They are considered among the best options to replace dominating fossil-based materials since they come from renewable sources; they can be modified on the chemical level and can be used for recyclable and/or biodegradable products.

*Advanced-growing materials* are materials from a controlled cultivation of organisms (bacteria, yeast, algae, mycelium, etc.) that are directly grown and/or manufactured into their subsequent form (bio-fabrication) (see Fig. 4). They play a significant role in the current search for sustainable substitutes and can be envisioned as surrogates for harmful, conventional materials in the context of packaging, building and insulation materials, alternatives for leather, and active agents for fabric dyeing (Pasold 2020).

The overview of those four EM&Ts reveals their complex nature and their strong connection with disciplines other than materials science, engineering, and design likewise, computer sciences, biology, chemistry, and physics.

The new EM&Ts expose new and unique characteristics, qualities, behaviours, and processes, channelling a shift in paradigm and requiring new approaches to learning and teaching techniques. Design practitioners and students continuously need to gain updated materials knowledge, skills, and competences, not only to deliver designs that exploit available material possibilities but also to contribute to new materials innovation and development (Haug 2019).

This primary consideration poses relevant questions: what is the expertise needed to deal with these EM&Ts? How can we approach EM&Ts as designers? And as scholars/educators how can we educate designers of the future to design with and for always new and emerging materials?

**Fig. 3** Examples of wood-based materials and applications

**Fig. 4** Mycelium shapes, SCOBY leather, controlled fabric dyeing with Janthinobacterium lividum. Left image by Anke Pasold from KEA, centre, and right image by Alkymi

To this end, this contribution aims to answer these questions on the described areas by proposing a new design method able to support the designers in dealing with EM&Ts, considering the knowledge at the core of the EM&Ts, and the multilayer skills required within the design process to develop demonstrators and products able to inspire new business.

The text is divided into four main parts. Following, the methodology part presents and examines: (i) the process of literature review in detail, illustrating the results and the main theoretical findings, (ii) the results of a collaborative workshops to generate the framework of the design (teaching) method. As third part, the new design (teaching method) is described followed by the exploration of new tools to be integrated into the new method. A discussion part follows and ends the contribution.

#### **2 Methodology**

From a methodological point of view, we established two main approaches, put in temporal sequence:

#### *2.1 Literature Review*

The literature review process started with questions: how much literature on each specific area ICS, Nano, Advanced Growing, and Wood-Based materials (general keyword 1)? Which are the innovative methods related to: application context (general keyword 2), behaviour (general keyword 3), perception (general keyword 4), and selection of the materials (general keyword 5)? Are there any innovative applications (general keyword 6)?

The research was focused on understanding the main related contents inside design disciplines in the period between 2015 and 2019. The choice to perimeter the article's research within the design field was done because of the already exhaustive and existing literature in materials science and engineering. The review was conducted using academic electronic databases such as Scopus, Web of Science, and relevant journals to better understand the subject. The analysis was conducted by inserting the name of the specific material plus the keywords mentioned above and verifying their presence in the title or abstract. We performed four literature reviews in parallel and we organised them using the platform Mendeley.

**Table 1** Sources identified for each keyword

A preliminary list was extracted by taking per each query, the first 50 results for relevance and citations up to 15. Afterwards, the database was refined, considering the relevant results after reading the abstracts and selecting just the most appropriate for the objectives of the investigation. The extracted list was further refined by avoiding repetition. A reduced list of 141 sources to be analysed for the review was obtained from this process.

Table 1 summarises the number of sources that were associated with the six identified keywords during the review process conducted on abstracts.

The literature review helped to map the state of the art of the EM&Ts' the core competencies, expertise, facilities, role of different involved actors (designers, engineers, material scientists), and methodological approach used in the design process. The hundred forty-one articles delineated a multifaced panorama within the four EM&Ts stressing an overall agreement on the cross-disciplinarity and the lack of systematised methods and approaches to sustain the complexity and the intersection of diversified disciplines. In the next section the theoretical findings are presented.

#### **3 Theoretical Findings**

The main results of the literature review as Pasold (2020) reported can be summarised as follow.

*General keyword 1: Knowledge at the core of each of the four EM&Ts:*

ICS Materials wearable based are concrete, product-related, and with a strong potential access to the market.

Advanced Growing and Experimental wood-based are material-property focused EM&Ts focusing on exploring materials and their respective potentials within products or substituting existing harmful materials.

Nanomaterials are instead application-ideation focused EM&Ts where the designers are part of shaping the capabilities of the respective applications.

ICS is the closest to a traditional design process while Advanced Growing and Nanomaterials require the need to move to the microscale and experimental woodbased require an understanding of the material on a chemical level to create possible areas of application.

They all share, and *high level of complexity* placed at the intersection of Design with other disciplines: Material research, Chemistry (Experimental woodbased) Material science, Biology, Chemistry and Engineering (Advanced Growing), Material science, Chemistry (Nanomaterials), and Design and Technology (ICS).

They also share four main recurrent approaches: *open access learning such* as a forum and platform to freely access the knowledge (BioHack Academy 2019; Materiability 2017; Materiom 2018; http://openmaterials.org); *Hands-on learning* to familiarise with specific characteristics, properties, and processes (Groth 2017; BioHack Academy 2019; Kääriäinen et al. 2017; NANOLAB 2019; BioHack Academy 2019); *Facilitation of expert integral courses* to merge the competencies (Chemarts 2019); *Facilitation of co-labs* (Itälä 2014; Kääriäinen et al. 2017; Karana et al. 2010).

Finally, a new evolving role of the designer arose: mediator and communicator.

Specifically, within the four areas a designer can be a scenario and application generator for Nanomaterials technology shapers, human physiology explorers, and user experience and scenario experts of ICS and material designers in the frame of Advanced Growing and Experimental wood-based materials.

*General keywords 2–6: Methods related to Behaviours, perception, selection application of the EM&Ts.*

Grouping the keywords from two to six we obtained four overall methods namely: *Contextualisation; Material-centred; User-centred; Case-centred*.

Table 2 the four approaches are synthetized through the most relevant articles.

The above-mentioned methods might be applied to all four EM&Ts explored in this text, nevertheless, they don't seem to cover their complexity (cross-disciplinarity) their newness, the communication between different professionals, the lack of samples, lack of standardised documentation and procedure making difficult to understand how to design with and for these new EM&Ts by embracing the full spectrum of their peculiarities.

#### **4 Collaborative Workshop**

The findings of the literature review have been elaborated in a graphical way to be used as input for half a day collaborative workshop involving researchers from Politecnico di Milano, Aalto University, Copenhagen School of Design and Technology (KEA), Tecnun University, and experts in the material field for the setting of the framework of the unique design (teaching) method in the four EM&Ts area.

We elaborated a shared ground poster summarising the literature review through common Gaps & Issues, and Methodological approaches, shared among the EM&Ts (see Fig. 5).

Moreover, for more advanced visualisation of the literature review, we elaborated four canvases per each EM&Ts: (1) The Sum up Canvas (single synthesis of the literature review per area), the EM&T Canvas (description of the area), The role of Designer Canvas and the Cross-disciplinarity Canvas (see Fig. 6).

Sixteen participants took part in the collaborative workshop; we created four groups of four participants. We assigned specific EM&T to every table where four copies (1 per group) of all the four canvases regarding each EM&T were placed (see Fig. 7). The room was organised, exhibiting a set of samples of materials from each EM&T on four different tables.

**Table 2** The four methods identified in the literature

**Fig. 5** Graphical result of the literature review

The session was organised in three steps:

A 15-min collective discussion followed. A facilitator used a whiteboard to keep records and systematically organise the most relevant points of the debate. The whole activity was audio recorded.

All the data generated during the collaborative workshops were consequently reelaborated and created, together with the findings of the literature, the basic knowledge for the framework of the new design (teaching) Method. The resulted body of knowledge can be summarised into four main blocks:

**Fig. 6** The four canvases

**Fig. 7** The collaborative workshop

Concerning the finding number one, we understood that ICS Materials EM&Ts area is characterised by the need for a holistic and hybrid approach considering material qualities & interactive behaviours.

The Nanomaterials EM&Ts area is characterised by the need for specialised labs and high-cost equipment for experimenting and the issue of scale and evidence of the technology.

The Experimental Wood-based EM&Ts area is characterised by not aiming directly for actual commercialization, which allows free ideation and 'grazy' experiments. The Advanced-growing EM&Ts area is characterised by a symbiotic relationship between the designer, living material and the issue of ethics.

The last classes of materials share the problem of time needed to grow and dry the material, which brings detachment between the moment of intervention of the designer and the moment of observation of the results.

They also share complex lifecycle and environmental matters, controversial perceptions, and fluctuation in price and availability of the materials and techniques.

Each EM&T stands at the intersection of three primary disciplines. Besides some minor distinctions and specifications, Design and Materials & Manufacturing are common areas for each EM&Ts, while the third discipline is specific for each area (see Fig. 8).

Besides some minor distinctions and specifications, Design and Materials & Manufacturing are common areas for each EM&Ts, while the third disciple is specific for each area:

The potential methods are classified in case-centred (e.g. for specific material suppliers/manufacturing company, specific environment/context, specific application); contextualization (e.g. the use of analogies, metaphors, biomimicry); user-centred/scenario-creation (e.g. sense-making, unobtrusivity, and wearability);

**Fig. 8** Common gaps and issues

material-centred (e.g. material-driven design, material tinkering, experimental pedagogy, material mappings, material meanings, physical probes and material samples, material concepts, prototypes, simulation of material behaviours, affordance making).

In this regard, concerning the EM&Ts we can envision a holistic and 'stepped' but continuous and simultaneous iterative design process based on learning materials on a general level and returning to a hands-on approach. The method may place material selection at an earlier stage and context definition as a starting point or developed

**Fig. 9** The 5 W of the original design (teaching) method

throughout the process. It would prioritise hands-on exploration over sketching and visualising.

Design with the complexity means: learning about other fields by self-immersion or planned immersion; structure interdisciplinary teaching and co-teaching; building interdisciplinary teams and co-labs; including or establishing expert networks as a group of support.

The last block of findings outlines the potential starting point(s) for the new design (teaching) method and is presented using the 5 W: material selection (What); design challenge (Why) application context (where); cross-disciplinarity disciplines (with whom); the role of designer (who) and finally: how to inspire and motivate designers for finding (new) applications, for people acceptance, for sustainability, for value-making, etc. (i.e., How?) (see Fig. 9).

#### **5 Results: The Unique Design Method**

Schön and Bennet (1996), described how the design, the creative, and learning practice itself could be observed as a conversation with materials, through which the practitioner gets to know materials.

In this regard, dealing with physical materials and product samples emerges as an efficient method for gaining knowledge about materials and for stimulating the creative process through direct exploration (Haug 2019; Rognoli 2010; Van Kesteren 2010; Pedgley 2010; Ayala Garcia et al. 2011).

New alternative methods involve multiple and alternative sources, such as 'Material-produced' information (i.e., direct experimentation with materials), 'Interpreter-produced' ones (i.e., discussion and confrontation with instructors, experts, and peers), and 'Representation-produced' ones, i.e., texts, videos, and pictures.

Those considerations and the findings summarised in the previous section brought to the elaboration of an original framework that foresees learning and teaching activities both cognitive and physical, based on identifying three main blocks: Understanding, Shaping/Experimenting, and Applying. Although those blocks are put in chronological succession, they are profoundly intertwined, iterating, and often simultaneous and overlapping in their definition (see Fig. 10).

Even if, each EM&T has its own specific needs and characteristics, we attempted to create a universal and common framework that has an inclusive a generalised nature, which tends to accommodate every definition and element and cover the complexity of every EM&T.

Hereafter the three blocks are described:

*Understanding*: it represents a diverse body of knowledge (e.g., explicit, tacit, theoretical, procedural, empirical) and multiple sources for acquiring knowledge

**Fig. 10** The understanding, shaping/experimenting, and applying framework

(e.g., interaction with material samples, discussion with instructors, experts, and peers, lectures, texts, videos, and interviews);

*Exploring/Shaping*: a block where tacit knowledge is mainly acquired. In this block, the material is experimented and shaped, by hands-on exploration and inlabs exercises. While exploring emphasises the designer getting experience on the materials and processes by iterating, documenting, and evaluating, Shaping is focused on the material being manipulated and developed in many ways, e.g., tinkering and fabricating, growing, and cooking. The initial stages of this block move ahead from the Understanding phase by exploring all the different opportunities that the material can exploit, with trials and errors, obtaining successes and failures.

*Applying*: it represents the synthesis of the process when the material is embedded and encoded into a project. In this block, the leading strategies, and approaches such as creativity, metaphors, biomimicry, sustainability, systematic approach, usercentred design, materials experience, speculative design, etc.

Despite the universal nature of the framework, each block remains specific per each area, respecting the nature, complexity, and intersection with other disciplines. For instance, the understanding phase of ICS will include knowledge related to computer science, while the one related to Advanced Growing will consist of fundamentals of biology and so on.

The original framework delineated a new design method whose uniqueness stays in the re-elaboration of the traditional steps (discover, define, develop, deliver) into new, more active, and interconnected blocks: understanding, exploring/shaping, and applying and, its practical dimension. Indeed, the creative practice is actively supported by exploring and experimenting.

To this end, we created tools to give designers concrete examples to understand the complex nature of the EM&Ts and exploit the possible application.

In this regard, the understanding phase is supported by an alternative source of learning likewise Open Educational Resource. We created fit-on-purpose videos for each of the four EM&Ts (see Fig. 11).

We also generated tools that can be used contemporary, alternatively, or in sequence for the understanding, shaping, and applying parts namely: the material toolkit and the integration card.

The Aim of the EM&Ts transfer toolkit is to facilitate the understanding and application potentials of each EM&Ts. Every material example has its box, containing: Physical sample, 'Understanding' section, 'Shaping' section, and 'Applying' one (see Fig. 12).

**Fig. 11** Alternative source for understanding

The understanding section contains basic knowledge about the material and the manufacturer, Technology Readiness Level, crucial characteristics but also information related to sensorial qualities and performance, sustainability, and smart properties. This shaping part contains information about the manufacturing process, the form in which the material is available and possible transformations. This information is useful to understand how the material can be processed for production, finishing, and transformation, to get to the final product.

The final section, the applying one contains information and pictures about the field in the material is currently used. Potential applications are listed, associated with meaningful case studies (see Fig. 13).

Finally, EM&Ts integration cards are to provide a tool to facilitate and inspire the process of integration of emerging materials and technologies, to envision new material possibilities. 11 cards are available to show examples of every possible area intersection among the four EM&Ts (see Fig. 14).

Each card is divided into two sections: integrations and opportunities. The integrations section includes an overall description of the areas' integration, highlighting characteristics and features of the category of materials. A visual board is included, comprehensive of applications, closeups, and texture samples, that can be useful to comprehend the potential of the integration and get inspiration for the design process. The opportunities section describes the opportunity of a combination of the areas, its Pros and Cons, academic and commercial references. Each opportunity shows a couple of case studies with pictures, a short abstract, and a link, that can be helpful as a concrete example of declination and application of the material/technology.

The exploring block is the more specific material-related one, and it relates to hands-on experimentation and material manipulation within a particular lab. The investigation can include programme, assembly, embedding, simulation, growing or cook (see Fig. 15).

**Fig. 12** Material toolkit overview

**Fig. 13** Understanding, shaping, applying

**Fig. 14** The integration cards

**Fig. 15** Exploring part in specific lab

#### **6 The Teaching Method**

The original framework is at the core of a new way to design with and for EM&Ts.

It was used to formalise training contents in Education and served as a blueprint for the contents and structure of the unique teaching method to be applied in the distinctive EM&T areas.

As said, each EM&Ts is framed in its specific cross-disciplinary nature. This has practical implications for the teaching method definition for each EM&Ts, defining the type of knowledge, skills, and competencies required and the expertise of the teaching staff.

Each EM&T stands at the intersection of three primary disciplines. Besides some minor distinctions and specifications, Design and Materials & Manufacturing are common areas for each EM&Ts, while the third disciple is specific for each area.

Therefore, we envisioned a course structured on 12 credits, divided into three modules based on the intersection identified through the literature review: Materials and Manufacturing (3 credits), Specific area per each EM&Ts, e.g., chemistry, biology (3 credits) Design (3 credits).

The three module covers the three main blocks of the original framework: understanding, exploring/shaping, applying. Being the subject in the intersection of different disciplines, the modules can be carried out co-teaching, e.g., with experts in related disciplines.

Regarding the format, the course can have multiple formats, e.g., lecture and hands-on sessions, lab and discussion, group learning projects, or presentations, taking inspiration from the methods identified into the literature review. Moreover, the course includes the tools generated within the logical framework.

The contents are formalised into an academic syllabus. The structure of the template has been designed and shaped based on the format used in Academic teaching environments by taking into consideration the Descriptors of Learning Outcomes for Higher Education Qualification, to have a universal, normed, and comprehensive document as a legacy of the project after its execution.

The template is divided into different sections:

We then obtained four different syllabuses: Designing with ICS materials wearable based; Design with Nanomaterials; Designing for and with experimental wood-based materials; Designing with Advanced-growing materials (see Fig. 16).

#### **7 Discussion**

This contribution has presented a new method for designing with and for specific EM&Ts, which aims to support designers through a cognitive and learning process shaped into three phases: understanding, exploring/shaping, and applying.

**Fig. 16** Example of the syllabus

The new method, containing an original framework and several tools, was generated by capitalising on existing knowledge through a literature review and the systematisation of such knowledge through a collaborative workshop.

The new method's value and uniqueness do not lie in the theoretical domain since it was validated in four 5 days of professional workshops involving students with mixed backgrounds (design and engineering) at the master level and companies.

The four workshops were performed in four universities with expertise in the four EM&Ts: School of Design of Politecnico di Milano (ICS), School of Engineering, University of Navarra (Nanomaterials), Materials Lab of the Copenhagen School of Design and Technology (Advanced growing materials) and Chemarts material lab of Aalto University (Experimental wood-based materials).

We decided to perform the workshops within an education environment with students at the master's level (considered young designers) and companies launching a real market challenge to verify the efficacy of the design method at a professional level and at the teaching one.

About thirty students work together in multidisciplinary teams to find solutions for those challenges and to produce product concepts, prototypes.

All the workshops were made of a combination of hands-on experimentation, design activities, and lectures and presentations by the teaching staff of the four universities and by companies launching a real design brief. In each workshop the students applied the new method developed within the project to design with four EM&Ts.

The teachers/researchers used the general framework with the already described exceptions due to the different nature of the four EM&Ts: specific lectures, experimentation, and co-labs.

At the end of the workshop, students answered a survey related to the method's efficacy, lectures and videos, tools, interaction with companies, and timeframe. The results elaborated by the four workshops were auspicious. Students found the method appropriate and the workshop format helpful to work with new EM&T (more than 85% rated the method as adequate); the supporting tools (material toolkit and integrations cards) were rated as highly satisfactory, while the most successful phase was considered the exploring one. The last result stressed the value of hand-on activities detected in the literature review.

The validation of the method was done in a reduced timeframe compared to a traditional design process. The time of the workshop was the most underrated parameter: getting familiar with the new EM&TS in terms of understanding and exploring takes time and the need for reflection.

In particular, the exploring phase that goes from coding to growing needs reasonable learning and practising period and, for instance, time for the material to grow (around two weeks) and to cook and dry (several days).

The performance of each workshop follows the original framework with one exception: to answer a real market-related design brief, there is a need to understand the final user. For this reason, we integrated an analysis related to the individuation of a proper sample of users and the understanding of their needs.

#### **8 Conclusions and Further Development**

This contribution aimed at answering these questions: what is the expertise needed to deal with these EM&Ts? How can we approach EM&Ts as designers? And as scholars/educators how can we educate designers of the future to design with and for always new and emerging materials?

To this end, a literature review on existing methods and approaches and a collaborative workshop with researchers and materials experts were performed.

As a result, we elaborated an original framework that foresees both cognitive and physical learning and teaching activities, based on identifying three main blocks: Understanding, Shaping/Experimenting, and Applying.

The original framework elaborated a new design (teaching) method to work with EM&Ts; this method envisions the usage of supporting tools such as a material toolkit and the so-called integration cards. Moreover, out of the framework, we created courses to be integrated in current Design curricula.

The new Unique Method to design with and for the 4 EM&Ts has proved successful in having a standardised practice and teaching methodology thanks to the application and validation to the design practice.

Nevertheless, a step forward in the implementation of the method is required: integration of methods and tools for the users' analysis into the understanding part as an element to move from experimentation to market, standardise time frame and prior knowledge for conducting and effective exploring phase.

#### **References**

**Venere Ferraro** Ph.D. in Industrial Design, is an Associate Professor at the Design Department of Politecnico di Milano. She has been Visiting Researcher at the University of New South Wales of Sydney (2006) and at the Media Lab of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2009) where she runs research on Wearable Systems with the lens on design-driven and user-oriented approaches. She is a Member of the Experience and Interaction Design Research Lab; She participated in several International and National research, and she has been the principal Investigator of the research project POD: Plurisensorial (SAFeRA 2014 joint call). Venere is currently the Coordinator of the European Project 'DATEMATS' (KA2-2018). Her main research activity is focused on the role of interaction design in the use of disruptive technology (Wearable and smart textile). In particular, on how to exploit the potential of digital technologies to design experiential systems in both the private and public sectors. What characterises her research is human-centred design. The research interests lie in the field of wearable devices, smart interactive systems for well-being with particular attention to tools and methods for changing user behaviour. She's the author of several international publications, and she holds International, National Patents and models.

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# **How Do We Approach and Involve Companies in Design Fields? Lessons Learned from Surveys and Participative Workshops**

#### **Alba Obiols**

**Abstract** In the last few years, both materials and technologies are becoming one of the leading elements of product design practice as a lever to foster innovation and add value to final products. Despite the relevance of materials and technologies for advances in many fields, and particularly its importance to the success of the creative industries, there is a gap between the innovative design of products that meet the needs of the market and the research and development of new materials and technologies to be used in these products. The lack of collaboration between researchers and creative industries is at the heart of this issue (Innovamatnet, February 2013). Building on this ground the chapter shows the results of a survey submitted to more than one hundred companies in five different countries (Italy, Spain, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark). It was generated with the aim of collecting information regarding their specific interests and needs related to the four exemplified EM&T (ICS Materials, Nanomaterials, Advanced Growing Materials, Experimental Wood-based Materials) and the internal methods to manage knowledge related to them and the way they use to collaborate with academia and the channels they would prefer to use. The chapter also depicts the findings derived from a qualitative analysis done with academia and performed to identify their preferred channels to transfer knowledge. It finally describes the Company Manifesto, considered an engaging way to enhance and support the collaboration between Academia and the industrial sector.

### **1 Results of a Survey Submitted to More Than One Hundred Companies**

In order to provide fundamental considerations regarding the current methods and tools used by companies as well as the existing relationships between research departments and enterprises that form part of the gap created between the academia and the industrial worlds, a study was developed to analyse and evaluate information

© The Author(s) 2023

A. Obiols (B)

Barcelona Design Centre, Barcelona, Spain e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
V. Ferraro et al. (eds.), *Materialising the Future*, Research for Development, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25207-5\_2

regarding companies' specific interests and needs related to four EM&Ts, their methods and tools internally used by companies to manage of knowledge on that innovation area and to understand the ways they use to collaborate with academia, as well as the channels they would prefer to use. The study was carried out within the framework and under the umbrella of the objectives surrounding the Erasmus+ project DATEMATS "Knowledge & Technology Transfer of Emerging Materials & Technologies through a Design-Driven Approach", which goal was to create a transnational network among Universities, Research Centres and Organizations in contact with SMEs in order to develop and implement interdisciplinary new methods for both design and engineering students in the field of emerging materials and technologies, and to boost also knowledge and emerging material and technology transfers from academia and research centres to companies and vice versa.

The study elaboration embraced the collaboration of European Organizations of Industries involved in the definition and development of questionnaires addressing a total sample of more than one hundred companies in five different EU countries: Italy, Spain, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark.

The survey had a questionnaire format and referred to three main topics structured in three sections. The first section collected general company information: sector, size, departments, and business interests regarding the four EM&T areas.

The second section tackled the context of knowledge transfer within a business and industrial organization to identify internal methods to manage that knowledge: identifying skills needed, what tools they use to feed their knowledge and technology needs, methods followed, roles within the company to work on the EM&Ts areas, and previous projects implemented thereby. The third and last section approached the relationship between the company and the academia, including high education institutions, research and technological centres, and material libraries.

This last topic addressed issues such as the collaboration background of the respondent company with the academia to understand the ways they used to collaborate and the type of experiences, whether considered either negative or positive.

The study's main findings will be presented below according to each section and topic addressed. Firstly, EM&Ts' areas of interest according to company size and territory. Secondly, access to knowledge from the internal company's organization point of view. And thirdly, the relationship between companies and academia.

For what concerns EM&Ts' areas of interest according to company size and territory, wood-based EM&Ts are the most used or manufactured with 30%. Large companies are mostly not implementing them but are interested in applying them in the coming future. Italy is the country in which companies are mostly interested in wood-based EM&Ts. ICS wearable-based EM&T is the area where 53% of companies are interested in, though they don't implement it yet. SMEs are the most interested in using and/or manufacturing wearables, and Spain is where companies are the most interested in.

Advanced growing EM&Ts is the area which companies are the least interested in with 59%, and the company size is probably not a defining variable to explain the low interest in this area because that response about having no interest in was the most answered in each category. According to territorial criteria, companies responding from Sweden and Finland were the most interested in this area.

Nanomaterials EM&Ts area represents the highest percentage, i.e. 67% of companies that manufacture and are interested in as well. Small and micro types of companies appear to be the most interested in applying nanomaterials EM&Ts in the coming future. Territorially, results showed a balance among all the four regions represented thereby.

Regarding access to knowledge and internal methods to manage it, more than 30% have a specific department to manage EM&Ts issues and less than 10% of the companies of the sample use to outsource the service, according to the results obtained. On the other hand, more than 10% of companies have no one assuming a role to conduct EM&Ts related activities and not even contract services to do so.

When asking about the channels used by the companies to get information about ongoing researches, updates, news, and trends on materials and technologies, the most common manner to stay closer to that knowledge is attending sector trade fairs while social media channels and newsletters are the least use for that purpose.

On the other side, technological centres are most popular when requesting technical information. Material libraries as well as their databases are the least consulted. To the question "Are you using specific methods or a structured methodology to find out and manage that information?", it was found that almost 80% of responses were negative. When approaching the gap between companies and academia, an important aspect is knowing the main difficulties a company may face searching for information regarding EM&Ts. As per the results, it happens to be the lack of time and the lack of material resources the two main reasons pointed out by companies.

Concerning the relationship between companies and academia, results showed that half of the companies collaborated with academia for product development and another 40% for projects in general. To the question "Has your company contributed with information, knowledge or know-how to academia for the last 5 years?", 60% of responses were positive, showing that more than a half of the sample had been open and active for collaboration with academia. Nearly one quarter said they had never collaborated with HEIs, research centres, and/or material libraries, the two main reasons highlighted were because academia seems remote and distant from the private sector and their fees are too expensive. However, for companies being in close contact with academia, results indicate that the most valuable reason for them to collaborate is they recognize it as a value to work with professionals with an extensive and profound knowledge in relation to the issues that they deal with.

When companies were questioned about their willingness to establish research projects with the university and deepen the potentialities of the EM&Ts, different realities were found. There are companies which present a long experience working together with universities. In these cases, it happens to exist an actual collaboration or past projects' references. Their conclusions in that regard are that universities and academia in general are seen as good partners for the research phase but are not considered competitive in terms of time and industrialization. On the other hand, they consider the fact that the output obtained from a research project with a university is not commercial, therefore the above-mentioned actually results unattractive from a start-up's or small company's position. In the particular case that no collaboration is found, the context for that to happen is given by their business core and the consideration that interaction between users and emergent materials are essential starting points. For instance, they would be willing to collaborate if the new material was applied on their existing products to offer better features and an improved performance.

When addressing the issue about difficulties in accessing knowledge, companies focus on research-based papers and books, which are seen as guidelines applicable within a research lab that are very difficult to apply in an industrial environment. The difficulty is found when accessing academic knowledge either through scientific papers or hiring a highly qualified expert from academia to assess them in a specific area related to EM&Ts, because industry is basically practice-based when academia is mainly research-based.

Ultimately, the following conclusions came out from the Confederation of Danish Industry's; indeed it was difficult to have respondents from Danish companies giving their limited number so, a researcher from KEA made a fit on purpose interview to the Head of the Confederation.

Hereafter the main findings: Internships and collaboration between education entities and companies, integrating students in their projects, are crucial to improve the knowledge transfer activity.

Since large companies have R&D departments where developing their own knowledge, collaboration between design academia and industry through contests, or including business challenges in academic courses, are channels for knowledge transfer mainly in SMEs. In that context, there is actually an opportunity to cause a pull effect from companies by inspiring them and providing them inputs for new solutions and product ideas.

### **2 Results from a Qualitative Analysis Done with the Academia to Identify Their Preferred Channels to Transfer Results and Knowledge**

Considering the Agenda for the modernization of Europe's higher education systems released in 2014, it presents various priority areas for higher education institutions. Among those key-points the following action is highlighted: "Strengthening the triangle of knowledge formed by education, research and innovation". The European communication recommends, first, public policies to encourage partnerships between higher education institutions and businesses; and second, higher education institutions to use the results of research and innovation in their educational offer to stimulate the development of entrepreneurial, creative, and innovative skills.

To this end, a qualitative analysis was carried out was to analyse the protocols used by academia for their knowledge transfer related activities addressed to the industrial world.

From the above-mentioned context, universities are nowadays required to carry out what has been named the *third mission*, which means to deal with the practices of technology transfer, knowledge transfer, and research results promotion. Researchers and educational practitioners have to transfer their know-how not only to the students through the development of educational activities and training methods but also to the third beneficiaries, industries, associations, and the market in general for exploitation and commercialization.

Therefore, the analysis examines the actual academic approach to deploy the socalled *third mission*. In order that the analysis could be carried out, the European Organization of Industries involved in DATEMATS set out a questionnaire with a total of eighteen enquiries addressing different aspects to be responded by researchers and academia's professionals. The set of questions span from what term is used for explaining the research impact in terms of social, cultural, and economic development to a more specific focus on how the research results are transferred: methods, activities, channels, difficulties faced when transferring results to companies, strategies to start collaboration with the industry, resources that universities have and use to boost that collaboration, etc.

Eventually, it is offered an overview of best practices implemented in the different universities' departments approached by the study. It is shown the current practices applied to deal with some of the difficulties and barriers that arise when it comes to technology transfer, knowledge transfer, and research results promotion. Researchers and educational practitioners present a broad sample of good practices when collaborating with companies and business professionals, having actually a significant impact in what we previously referred to as the *Triangle of Knowledge*, linking education, research and innovation and consequently, reducing the gap between Universities and Industrial worlds.

In order to explain the impact of research in terms of social, cultural, and economic development, 52% of HEI's interviewed use interchangeably both terminology, knowledge transfer and technology transfer. Knowledge transfer (26%) is more commonly used than technology transfer (17%), and rarely other terminology is used. Design department is the only one that uses other terminologies to explain the impact of research, such as design culture, anthropocentric design, knowledge transfers, and exchange.

As for the methods, *academic paper* (32%) is the most used method by academia to transfer knowledge. Although this trend is seen in all areas of specialization, Design areas also use *books* to spread their research. Material areas regularly use *patents* jointly with *papers*. And in the Engineering areas it's remarkable the fact that they also show a relevant use of *patents*, but also others like setting up *startups* involving business professionals and elaborating *product samples* to get the company's interest. About activities performed by HEIs to transfer results, while the development of *practical applications* (36%) are the most common, other activities mentioned like *training courses*, *hackathons*, or *focus groups*, which are actually used by Design and Sustainability areas, should also be taken into consideration. In terms of dissemination channels, the most used are *conferences* (29%), especially in Design and Engineering areas, followed by *social networks* (19%) and *newsletters*  (16%).

The main troubles expressed by academic respondents when transferring their results are the differences on *time perception* including the fact that academia can't adapt to the time reduction companies demand (25%) and *finding companies* willing to go through a knowledge transfer process (23%), representing both of them almost half of the total answers. Regarding formulas to contact industry from academia and make the first contact, they mostly address companies by sending *research publications* (36%). However, academia expresses that actually this first contact is normally done by companies. The importance of time management from academia's point of view is revealed by the 41% answering that *time management* may affect the scope of the knowledge transfer process, and 38% of the sample's respondents answered to *adapt their time* periods to the company demands.

The importance of language when transferring research results is seen by the fact that almost half of the answers (49%) agree that academia adapts the results to a more understandable language, however, the other half of respondents (44%) consider that technical language is not a barrier for transferring knowledge to companies.

Lastly, addressing the fact that knowledge may be transferred into the company having an impact in the way company's target users consume and relate to the company's products or services, user's perspective is integrated in the process, however, that integration is mostly seen after a theoretical analysis about the user's perspective in that subject in particular (50%), it is less seen but also applied that users are involved personally in the knowledge transfer processes (38%).

#### **3 Best Practices in Knowledge Transfer Methods**

To foster a peer-to-peer learning, academia was approached regarding best practices when collaborating with companies and third parties from the industrial world: "*Could you describe a best practice regarding the collaboration with companies/third parties?*".

Most of them pointed out the following practices: showing economic benefit companies will have when collaborating with HEIs; responding to all companies' needs and priorities as for requirements, objectives, time frame, and knowledge improvement, according to the market demand; and applying collaborative research programmes funded by national and EU funding programmes. Nevertheless, there are other best practices mentioned that may contribute to shorten distance between HEIs and companies for knowledge transfer: setting up collaboration agreements between parties to run a research; specialized workshops for companies' improvement; establishing non-disclosure agreements with companies; collaboration with talent incubators which followed the students' projects' development bringing them to the market; the company sets a brief and frames a problem to work closely with students in the design process.

Given all the data and results obtained, a comparative analysis was provided in view of the context in companies regarding their access to new knowledge about emerging materials and technologies and how they manage and integrate them internally in their innovation and business strategies. This analysis has been implemented identifying weaknesses, challenges, and opportunities in terms of channels and methods used by both actors, academia, and companies, having problems and difficulties on both sides: when transferring research results and cutting-edge technology to companies and when these companies search for new information and need to deal with innovative applications.

Although analysis' reflections raised widely divergent issues between industrial and academic world, some relevant concurrent trends arise thereto. Below, the main weaknesses, challenges, and opportunities in that regard are explained.

Channels used by companies to access new knowledge, and innovative applications do not match with those popular channels in the academic sector. While social networks are the second channel most used by academia, companies that are not yet implementing EM&Ts, but are willing to do so, show that social media is the least used (5%).

The most used method in academia to transfer their knowledge is through academic papers and patents (53%), although companies don't feel familiar with scientific publications.

Two of the most used formulas to contact companies are sending scientific publications (36%) or a book resulting from the research activity (22%). Academia uses a much more theoretical method than the one demanded by companies with a more result oriented and commercial perspective.

Academia's results in general show a minor use of methods such as elaboration of product samples (14%) and development of start-ups involving business professionals (9%).

The academia's difficulties found when transferring innovative knowledge to industry—differences on time perception (25%), differences on interest and/or motivation (14%), the agreement regarding the problem formulation with the company (12%), and the language (11%)—could explain why companies still identify reasons for not collaborating.

The second trouble mostly expressed by academics when transferring their research results to companies is that they do not know how to find out companies willing to go through a knowledge transfer process (23%).

The companies' reasons for not collaborating are that they think collaboration itself seems complicated and academia is remote and distant from the private sector (40%); besides, companies don't realize how collaboration could help their businesses and think that there is no need to do so (26%).

Half of the academic respondents do not adapt their language because 44% do not think that technical language may be a barrier to transferring knowledge to companies. For only 2% of the respondents from academia language is always adapted to the target audience.

Companies find difficulties in accessing new knowledge from academia, resulting in the second main barrier to adopt innovative technology, it is expressed as the information is hard to find (23%) plus they find restricted access to that information (14%).

Within the top three channels most commonly used by companies to get new information on EM&Ts are sector trade fairs and conferences. In this scenario we find that conferences are also considered as one of the channels mostly used by academia. Nonetheless, conferences for academia may differ from those addressed to companies. Therefore, an opportunity arises for academia to be more present in trade fairs and conferences, not only the scientific ones, but also those approaching the industrial sector.

From companies' perspective, curricular education is seen as an effective way to transfer innovative knowledge to students who will become part of companies; in the current context, academic references are mostly applied during the research phase but not in the product development, collaboration may only be seen as convenient if it leads to a commercial product.

A few academic respondents approached the industrial focus when answering how they use to transfer their research results, for example, they share research results during their classes to students or during professional courses to companies; they elaborate product samples, prototypes, technical briefs, and similar to provide companies the knowledge to improve and optimize their products, services, and processes, also collaborating directly with them to develop new products; and one case expressed to have an observatory for knowledge transfer.

Considering the activities that academia performs to transfer their knowledge to companies, up to 75% of cases involve companies and practical applications, for instance, 36% develop practical applications with or without companies, 21% develop case studies, and 21% implement workshops addressed to companies.

Although language is not expressed as a relevant difficulty by companies (5%), there is a clear link between the channel used to transfer knowledge and the kind of language adopted. *Papers and patents* (53%) as methods the most used by academia, and academic *conferences* (29%) as the most used channel, it seems that scientific and technical are the predominant languages, and obviously they don't need to be adapted in those cases. However, when *sector trade fairs* and *internet search* are identified as the two main channels for companies to access to new knowledge, academia should consider it to necessarily adapt their scientific and technical language to the final target, the survey's results show an only 2% of HEIs who specifically do so, albeit they also show that a 49% adapt their results to a more understandable language.

By defining channels and the language accordingly for knowledge transfers to the industrial world, academia has a real chance to overcome those problems found by companies when searching EM&Ts information—information is hard to find (23%) and there is restricted access to that information (14%)—as well as proving that academia is not remote and distant, so making collaboration evident and simple.

#### **4 Conclusions**

Transferring knowledge from academia to companies has become a key issue to improve the competitiveness of the countries' economies. In this regard, universities are recognized to have both missions, education, and research. All the same, they are required to deal with knowledge transfer and research results promotion, in other words, to develop what has been called the third mission. In that regard, universities have been considered a driver for social and economic development.

Consequently, the research community has to spread its knowledge and know-how not only to the students but also to the third beneficiaries such as companies, industrial professionals, and associations, aiming at commercially exploiting the research from academia to have an impact on market activity and on society. Hence, they contribute to the link between education, research, and innovation. In that context, knowledge transfer effectiveness is crucial. In this regard, below, relevant outcomes and reflections are explained based on the results obtained from the survey conducted among the Universities involved in the DATEMATS project, and the comparative analysis carried out with these results and those obtained from the survey and several interviews conducted with private sector representatives.

In the above-mentioned context, channels, methods, and activities to get in touch and to collaborate with companies must be taken as a crucial matter because, at the present, companies find two main barriers to adopt innovative technology: it is considered an expensive investment, and they do not have knowledge to implement it. They find difficulties in accessing new knowledge from academia expressing that the information is hard to find and there is restricted access to that information. Besides that, companies still identify reasons for not collaborating with academia, pointing to their thoughts about collaboration being complicated; academia seems remote and distant from the private sector; and they don't know how collaboration could help their businesses realizing that there is no need to do so.

In relation to the mentioned topic, academia finds difficulties when transferring innovative knowledge to industry in differences on time perception, differences on interest and motivation, the agreement regarding the problem formulation with the company, and the language. And the second trouble mostly expressed by academics when transferring their research results to companies is that they do not know how to reach companies which want to collaborate and run a knowledge transfer process.

Considering these facts above-mentioned, academia can approach those challenges to conduct their goal thereby and to overcome the problems found by companies as well as defeat those reasons for not collaborating with academia by adopting considerations that are exposed below:

• Keep in mind that there is a clear link between the channel used to transfer knowledge and the kind of language adopted. Since sector trade fairs and internet search are identified as main channels for companies to get new knowledge, academia should consider it to go beyond the adaptation to a more understandable language, and instead, expressly adapt their technical language to the final target.

It is shown that these criteria, already used by HEIs' Design and Sustainability areas, would help to create an effective collaboration and guide companies in their innovation processes. Since design facilitates a user centred approach and helps the assimilation of new technology in the market, using *design thinking* methodologies in different dynamics of the workshop would be useful to achieve common interests of academia and companies.

At the present time, scientific publications—*papers*—arise as the most common method used by academia to transfer their results, and the industry expresses not to be familiar with it. Neither *patent* make companies learn about new findings. It is crucial to find **successful protocols in which companies could see contribution and benefits for their businesses**, for example, showing best practices of collaboration between companies and academia when developing innovation; having academic profiles in companies and vice versa, attracting research profiles with experience in the business world. In that regard, both industrial and academic spheres must **work together to establish common spaces, environments, and channels for a fluid and permanent exchange of interests and motivations**, like participation in trade fairs and conferences, collaborative projects development, generating both mutual confidence and participative workspaces to boost long-term relationships. Much likely, these scenarios would contribute to a more fluent and better bi-directional communication, aligning companies' demands with academia research and knowledge context, resources, and timings.

### **5 Company Manifesto: An Engaging Way to Enhance and Support the Collaboration Between Academia and the Industrial Sector**

A Company Manifesto was presented to involve the industry and the business sector in a transnational network because of the project activities and therefore to contribute, to create, and strengthen a cross-field multiplier network.

The development for the setup of the manifesto document and this to be presented to companies including its format and the process followed to engage them, not only in a way they would sign up the manifesto but also how to make them part of the above-mentioned network.

The goal of the initiative was to create a transnational network among universities, research centres, innovation and design institutions, and companies to develop and implement interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary methods for education and training on EM&Ts. The objective thereby is to share approaches, knowledge, and needs among individuals coming from either the academia or the industry world, for further collaborations and to keep alive the connection after the end of the project.

#### *5.1 Format Identification and Implementation*

The manifesto was set up to be an agreement and a statement of intent by companies to keep updated about the project results, also to be part of a network formed by different kinds of research centres and enterprises and be involved in future activities related to the topic. The Manifesto description needed to be concise, precise, and straightforward to the issue. It was agreed that it wouldn't appear as a signing a legal document but to be an action to confirm companies' commitment in being part of a network to share information and participate in knowledge transfer related activities.

The format chosen to develop the Manifesto initiative was to subscribe to an online form through which to join the DATEMATS Companies Manifesto. The form included companies profile identification and specific statements for companies to give their consent and show their interest in participating in future project's activities and receive project related results. Below, the relevant sections and statements of the online form:

Type of company: Material Manufacturer, Potential Material Manufacturer, Enduser of Materials, or Potential user of Materials.

Area of EM&Ts most interested in: Interactive Connected Smart (ICS) Materials: wearables, Nanomaterials, Wood-based Materials, Advanced Growing Materials.

"*I am interested in Emerging Materials and Technologies knowledge and transfers with a design driven approach*" with two given options: Yes or No.

"*I am interested in being part of interdisciplinary workshops with other companies and students to test and assess new knowledge transfer methods*" with two given options: Yes or No.

"*I want to receive project results as well as being part of the above referred transnational network to be connected after the end of the project*" with two given options: Yes or No.

Considering the information gathered from the Manifesto form, the interest of the companies involved is very transversal, most of the companies selected the three or all of the EM&Ts' areas. All of the Manifesto form respondents expressed a yes in the above three statements.

The companies' Manifesto was uploaded in one section of the DATEMATS website as a list of companies with their names, logos, and links to their organization websites as a tangible result to show. Therefore, one part of the action of joining the manifesto was also the consent to appear on the project's website.

The initiative reached 57 companies resulting in a number above the 30 expected to sign the Manifesto. So considering the Manifesto description, these companies and industry professionals have become part of a network with access to the project's outcomes, which involved a series of activities and publications addressing companies and professionals such as exhibitions and events, knowledge transfer days, final international conference, training guidelines in the field of EM&T, training workshops directed to managers, companies and students, and entrepreneurship workshops for EM&Ts related start-ups. As a result, it allows to develop new guidelines and approaches to technology, transfer knowledge from academia to industries, and to create new professional competences and entrepreneurial skills in young students.

### *5.2 Implications of the Manifesto's Results During the Project Implementation and Beyond*

The Manifesto initiative had a direct impact on other tasks and goals of the DATEMATS project. For example, the interdisciplinary EMT&s challenges were conceived as four experimental workshops, each one of them focusing on one of the four specific EM&Ts' areas. All the workshops needed to involve companies, which were selected from those that signed the Manifesto and therefore they became part of the transnational network which one of its goals was to develop interdisciplinary methods for education and training on EM&Ts. When selecting companies to be part of the interdisciplinary workshops, it was agreed to select companies according to their experience instead of their interest, meaning that a company that is interested in an EM&T area has not necessarily experience in that area. Companies that already have experience in specific EM&Ts can provide materials and knowledge that students can use to prototype and design. It is not necessary that selected companies be the manufacturer of that EM&T, but that show expertise and application experiences. Therefore, an analysis was done by HEIs to the companies signing the Manifesto to identify their experience and expertise in the specific areas of EM&Ts. The HEIs contacted companies that were classified as interested in their EM&Ts' area of specialization to start defining a design briefing and a challenge to be presented to students during the foreseen workshops.

As a result, the above-mentioned actions represented a first step to start building links and connecting the industry world with the academia and their students, so the ultimate consequence of the Manifesto initiative is that all the companies and academia being part of this network will have the means to share approach, knowledge, and needs for further collaborations and to keep alive the connection after the end of the project.

**Alba Obiols** presents a solid expertise in defining and implementing environmental sustainability strategies. During the last nine years she's developed social impact initiatives within different public and private organizations. Currently, she works as an Innovation and Circular Design Project Manager within the Barcelona Design Centre. There, she coordinates the area of circular economy and sustainability while managing research and innovation projects and dealing with funding opportunities, consortium building and partnership coordination. Her education and specialization are based on international and public affairs with a focus on the European regulatory framework. Ms. Obiols holds a Master Degree in International and European Union Law as well as two university degrees in Law and Business Management and Administration. She presents further professional training in the field of Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation coordinated by the University of Melbourne, and in Clean and Sustainable Urban Development in Latin American and Caribbean region coordinated by the Inter-American Development Bank.

**Open Access** This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter's Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.

# **A Supporting Tool to Design with and for EM&Ts: The Materials Toolkit**

**Gemma Esteban, Geraldine Kann, Veronica Sarbach, and Daniela Amandolese**

**Abstract** The chapter gives an exhaustive description of the so-called EM&Ts toolkit, a collection of tangible samples displaying emerging materials and technologies and containing five samples for each EM&Ts. Aim of the EM&Ts transfer toolkit is to provide a tool to facilitate the understanding and application potentials of emerging materials and technologies. Every material example has its box, containing: (1) Physical sample, (2) An "Understanding" card: it provides basic knowledge about the material and the manufacturer, Technology Readiness Level, crucial characteristics, and features. The sensorial qualities and performance, sustainability, and smart properties are listed for a clearer understanding of the materials potential; (3) A "Shaping" card: it contains information about the manufacturing process, the form in which the material is available and possible transformations. This information is useful to understand how the material can be processed for production, finishing, and transformation, to get to the final product. The card highlights, which processes that, have been associated with the material so far; (4) An "Applying" card: it gives information and pictures about the field the material is currently used. The material characteristics are compared with other better-known alternatives. In addition, other potential applications are listed, associated with meaningful case studies. The toolkit was created to be used as an aid in educational contexts with students and during workshops with companies and professionals. It is a powerful tool to provide students with information about the materials and their opportunities and limits, and to inspire them during the concept development. On the other side, it has potentialities to provide decision makers of the company with information about the emerging

G. Esteban (B) · G. Kann Materfad, Barcelona, Spain e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
G. Kann e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
V. Sarbach · D. Amandolese Materially S.r.l. Impresa Sociale, Milano, Italy e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
D. Amandolese e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>materials and technologies, their opportunities and limits, and to inspire them for innovation in product development. The chapter describes the continuous iterative process through which the toolkit was created and evaluated. Indeed, the toolkits have been used and tested in the academic context, with more than 100 students of diverse design backgrounds during EM&Ts workshops in Spain, Italy, Denmark, and Finland but also in professional context, during participative workshops with 94 companies, design studios, and professionals.

#### **1 Introduction**

Within the DATEMATS initiative, several outputs have been produced: the DATEMATS EM&Ts Transfer Toolkit is one of these, combining different project results in one tangible artefact.

The EM&Ts toolkit is a collection of tangible samples displaying five case studies for each of the four Emerging Materials and Technologies (EM&Ts) areas approached in the project:

Aim of the toolkit is to provide a means to facilitate the understanding and application potential of new materials and innovative technologies.

Traditionally in science and engineering, materials are characterized technically, through a series of studies aiming at probing and measuring the structure and properties of materials. In design, a holistic approach to materials is adopted which requires the characterization of materials for their experiential qualities, alongside the technical understanding. (Camera and Karana 2018)

The DATEMATS collection of materials samples, a total of 20, is not exhaustive but of illustrative nature to trigger interest in emerging materials or reconsider known physical matter under a new perspective.

The toolkit was created to be used in knowledge transfer activities in educational contexts with students, and during workshops with companies and professionals. It is a powerful tool to provide designers and producers with information about the material's properties, opportunities, and limits, and to inspire during the design process or innovate already developed products.

Each material sample is showcased in its box accompanied by an exhaustive description, and based on the developed DATEMATS methodology, that sheds light on the three main aspects to consider when designing with emerging materials and technologies. The explanations are summarised in *understanding*, *shaping,*  and *applying* the EM&T, made easily assimilable through graphics, icons, and case studies.

Understanding material experiences can enrich designers' vocabulary and open up the design space for unique functions and expressions. (Barati et al. 2017)

The development of the DATEMATS EM&Ts Transfer Toolkits was planned in two separate project tasks which were led by the consortium partners Materially Srl (former Material ConneXion Italia) and FAD respectively. Nevertheless, strong spirit of cooperation and commitment throughout the whole creation process from both leaders and additional contributors characterised the collaboration. In the following paragraphs, the process that led to the first version and, after different evaluation steps, the creation of the final version is thoroughly described.

#### **2 DATEMATS EM&Ts Transfer Toolkits—First Version**

To start the creation process in a collaborative manner and ensure that expectations are met, a general brief indicating the goal and contents of the toolkits based on the available task description was shared with the all-consortium partners, to identify possible constraints and requests regarding the shape and collect suggestions for potential solutions. In addition, all task-related documents were shared online and made available for consultation and contributions.

#### *2.1 Phase 01: Material Scouting*

Materially, in collaboration with FAD, executed an in-depth scouting activity exploiting their in-house material database and established contacts with material suppliers, identifying more than 60 possible materials suitable for the DATEMATS EM&Ts toolkit. To facilitate collaboration and exchange of information between the partners, a shared spreadsheet was set up, categorising the scouted materials based on their characteristics responding to one of the four DATEMATS EM&Ts areas: Advanced growing EM&Ts, Experimental Wood-based EM&Ts, Interactive Connected Smart (ICS) Wearable-based EM&Ts, Nanomaterial EM&Ts. The data collected in the spreadsheet included basic information such as: pictures, commercial name, short material description, manufacturer, online references (supplier website), etc. The materials identified and pre-selected by Materially and FAD were presented to the experts of the four HEIs involved in the project—KEA for Advanced Growing EM&Ts, AALTO for Experimental Wood-based EM&Ts, POLIMI for ICS Wearable-based EM&Ts and TECNUN for Nanomaterial EM&Ts—which indicated their preferences and confirmed the final selection of at least five materials for each EM&Ts area (see Fig. 1).

The data of the selected materials was subsequently integrated with additional description to provide information according to the pedagogical framework, defined

**Fig. 1** Over 60 materials scouted for the 4 EM&Ts areas

within the DATEMATS methodology, that identifies the following three aspects as crucial for designing with EM&Ts:

For each of these aspects, online freely available digital content related to the specific material was scouted, able to facilitate the knowledge transfer.

#### *2.2 Phase 02: Collecting the Information*

The collected information about each EM&T material is included in the toolkit on three separated datasheets, addressing the three aspects of DATEMATS's unique design method—Understanding, Shaping, Applying—and accompanying the showcased physical sample. Several tools were created to gather the needed data about the materials. These tools were shared with the consortium to be exploited and adapted for the creation of the final toolkit.

To facilitate filling in the datasheet for all the selected materials, an online form was created; a simple tool to uniform data collection and provides a standardised format useful for future integrations during DATEMATS project execution. In addition, using Google Form allows one to collect the answers in one excel file, thus creating a dedicated DATEMATS EM&Ts materials database (see Fig. 2).

The online form, divided into five sections, collects the following data:

To extract the gathered information easily from the online form (database) into the dedicated material datasheet, the architecture of the datasheet was defined via an excel file.

**Fig. 2** Extract of list of selected EM&T materials

#### \*All data required:

#### AREA UNDERSTANDING

#### SHAPING

#### CONTACT DETAILS

### *2.3 Phase 03: Conceptualising the EM&TS Toolkit*

Materially executed a series of activities—including desk research and benchmark on similar tools—to design the toolkit in an appropriate manner, involving whenever possible all-consortium partners (see Fig. 3).

**Fig. 3** Inspirational images for concept

Based on the general brief, Materially ideated two concepts: the "book" and the "box" (see Fig. 4).

**Fig. 4** Concept sketches

**Fig. 5** Final concept sketches

After the presentation of the two initial concepts during the 3rd consortium meeting, the feedback and suggestions collected were integrated into a third proposal, optimising the advantages of the two previous ones in this final concept.

The final concept, called the "folder/book", provides a single container for each material, but the sample and datasheets are removable offering the possibility to organise the knowledge transfer activities in an explorative manner (see Fig. 5). This guided interaction enhances material exploration, where manipulating the samples is appropriate, while assuring integrity and good conservation of the samples.

### *2.4 Phase 04: Prototyping and Production of the EM&TS Toolkit Version 1*

Materially decided to optimise the dimensions of the single material container to be complying with the international standard format DIN A5, in this way the toolkits are handy and easily adjustable for the final version. In consultation with a local typography able to produce the 20 containers, Materially chose using laminated cardboard and foam board to create the toolkit drafts, applying die cutting and digital printing to trim and customise each EM&T material's container. A mock-up was created to verify dimensions, functionality, and finalise the graphic layout. Finally, the manufacturers of the materials featured in the toolkits were contacted to receive the needed material samples (see Fig. 6).

The material sample container's graphic layout was created based on the project's visual identity (see Figs. 7 and 8). References include general information about the project's goals, focus points—the four EM&Ts areas—involved partners and project funding references. Special attention was adopted to create coherence with the visual impact of the datasheets.

The graphic layout of the datasheets was designed based on the project's visual identity and includes several infographics to convey the data in an effective and

**Fig. 6** Toolkit mock-up inside view with sample placeholder

**Fig. 7** Toolkit graphic layout, outside and inside

immediate manner, enhancing the user experience while exploring the materials. Format of the datasheet is conformed to international standards (A5 DIN) to foster large-scale fruition and dissemination.

Figs. 9, 10, 11, and 12 showcase the three datasheets (front and back page) of the product "Fenix NTM", selected for the Nanomaterial EM&Ts area.

**Fig. 8** Toolkit (first version) inside view

**Fig. 9** Material Fenix, card Understanding

**Fig. 10** Material Fenix, card Shaping

**Fig. 11** Material Fenix, card Applying

**Fig. 12** Toolkit (first version) Closed

**Fig. 13** Toolkit (first version) Open

#### *2.5 Phase 05: Evaluation and Handing Over*

Materially created this first version of the DATEMATS EM&Ts transfer toolkit in tight collaborations with FAD, both hosting a material library, based on their experience of managing and using physical samples for knowledge transfer and consulting activities (see Fig. 13).

The consortium partners, especially the four involved HEIs, are the main users of the Toolkit in support of the ad hoc developed Design Teaching Method (DTM). Valuable feedback to improve the "EM&Ts transfer toolkits version 1" was gathered during the knowledge transfer activities where the DATEMATS DTM and its tools were validated. Subsequently, the following aspects were assessed and optimised in the final version:

MATERIALS—physical samples have been selected based on the needs and suggestions provided by the responsible partners of the four EM&Ts areas and their availability; some materials might be substituted or added for the final version in order to effectively communicate the essence of the DATEMATS EM&Ts.

DATASHEETS—the content of the EM&Ts material datasheets are based on the DTM guidelines describing each material from three different point of view and providing information to enhance understanding, shaping, and applying of the materials; information provided on the datasheets might be substituted or extended in the final version in order to effectively communicate the DATEMATS EM&Ts properties and potentials.

FORMAT—the proposed format aims at providing an efficient and easy manageable tool with a strong attention to material exploration while facilitating interactive and module-based knowledge transfer activities; shape, dimension and material of the container might be modified in the final version in order to adjust the flaws and integrate insights gained during the project execution.

#### **3 DATEMATS EM&Ts Transfer Toolkits—Final Version**

In the process of updating and finalising the definite version of the EM&TS transfer toolkits, the materials kits continued to be shown to students and companies in dedicated knowledge transfer activities in 2020 and 2021 (Knowledge Transfer Labs held in Sweden, Italy and Spain and Mobility Workshops at Tecnun and Polimi) as a flexible tool to experience, understand and interpret each of the selected materials by providing data and tangible examples of the EM&Ts to transfer.

At the same time, the prototypes were examined exhaustively with the experts of each EM&Ts to obtain their suggestions and possible substitutions of the current showcased materials for their respective area.

Experts were also asked for new projects, references, and inspirations on their specific area to create digital mood boards for each EM&Ts that were then linked to the QRs of the toolkit boxes to be used by students during the upcoming activities. These mood boards were also intended to show that each EM&Ts has much more materials and projects than the five featured in the toolkit and the aim is to serve as an inspirational visual document that can be even more expanded.

The collected feedback for digital as well as physical improvements in form and content of the datasheets and boxes from the draft version was then analysed and filtered after testing them in the above-mentioned activities.

In addition, a booklet describing the knowledge transfer method and the related DMT (Design Methods & Tools) guidelines to interpret the samples for that specific EM&Ts, was integrated into the final version of the materials kits.

Finally, images with higher resolution were scouted by FAD and Materially so that the graphic designer could implement all digital changes. With the amendments and improvements, she also created a new graphic layout of the boxes and coordinated the production and printing of the final version of the EM&Ts transfer toolkit.

All this information was organised into spreadsheets.

**Fig. 14** Excerpt from "Feedback Toolkit v1 | Transnational Milan + KTL 2020 | Experts 2021 | Mobility WS 2021" [EM&T Advanced Growing]

Below (from Figs. 14, 15, 16, and 17) is an excerpt of all four EM&Ts comments gathered during the feedback sessions and responses:

### *3.1 Phase 06: Revision and Update of Datasheets, Creation of DATEMATS Mood Boards and Glossary (Final Version)*

All links to the 20 digital datasheets and layout for the boxes were included in the follow-up spreadsheet of the final toolkits for the completion of all tasks concerning the revision of the material parameters and design changes.

Fig. 18 shows the four respective EM&Ts mood boards created for Advanced Growing, ICS Wearables, Nanomaterials and Wood-Based.

For the 20 digital datasheets corrections of all four EM&Ts (each document accounting for 5 materials per area and 6 pages) the same schematic structure was used as follows:

Understanding:

**Fig. 15** Excerpt from "Feedback Toolkit v1 | Transnational Milan + KTL 2020 | Experts 2021 | Mobility WS 2021" [EM&T ICS: Wearables]

Shaping:

Application:

One of the general changes is that the datasheets are now composed of 7 pages in the new version in a leaflet format (instead of the 6 previous pages).

Another big change is that the entire content and images of three new materials samples for the specific datasheets PTF inks (EM&Ts ICS Wearables), Fenix

**Fig. 16** Excerpt from "Feedback Toolkit v1 | Transnational Milan + KTL 2020 | Experts 2021 | Mobility WS 2021" [EM&T Nanomaterials]

**Fig. 17** Excerpt from "Feedback Toolkit v1 | Transnational Milan + KTL 2020 | Experts 2021 | Mobility WS 2021" [EM&T Wood-Based]

(EM&Ts Nanomaterials) and Arbocel (EM&TS Wood-Based) were substituted for "Flexinol", "Nnf Ceram" and "Kraft Pulp" respectively.

To better familiarise the user with the specific terminologies used in the datasheets, a new section called "Glossary" was curated and included in the new datasheet's layout. (Confront the section of this Book called Glossary)

#### A Supporting Tool to Design with and for EM&Ts: The Materials Toolkit 57

**Fig. 18** Mood boards of the four EM&Ts

#### **3.1.1 Understanding Section**

The information shown on the datasheets was improved: The infographics were changed, the TRL levels more highlighted, more colour gradients shown, and arches and bars redesigned (see Fig. 19).

A more clear and intuitive graphic system was created to showcase the parameters of each EM&TS (i.e., a graphic intuitive 4 level system with "lack, low, medium, high" and scales from 1 to 5 were applied).

**Fig. 19** Understanding section

#### **3.1.2 Shaping Section**

The Supply arche and Shape icons were redesigned into more clearer indicators (see Fig. 20).

#### **3.1.3 Applying Section**

The "Comparison" section was changed into "Comparison and Innovation". Also, all case studies were reviewed as well as updated, and wherever possible, added when missing (see Fig. 21).

#### *3.2 Phase 07: Box Layout (Final Version)*

Based on the feedback received for adopting the final version of the EM&Ts toolkits' box, the main considerations were to find a solution to the datasheets falling out of the box when displaying it. The comments received from experts and users had indicated that it was a good thing to take out the datasheets of each EM&Ts box to explore the data more in depth, but that it was not easy to do the sorting afterwards. Some ideas on how to attach-detach datasheets were that they could be open like a fan, book

#### **Fig. 20** Shaping section

**Fig. 21** Applying section

bended, or clicked to the toolbox with a ring. Also, more differentiation, for example with rubber bands or more distinctive datasheets might help to put the datasheets into order and each EM&Ts toolkit again. Another input was to maybe stand the box up, as a better way to keep them open in the middle of the table to have a better look at the sheets.

The format of the datasheets and box of the prototype version was to be maintained since it is conformed to international standards (A5 DIN) and easier to foster largescale fruition and dissemination of the toolkits.

Furthermore, in the process of revising the box, it was decided to keep the project's visual identity, while improving the design in a graphic, tactile, and logical sequence sense. Above all, it was important to give a clearer more intuitive twist for exploring the toolkits' data and materials as non- expert users while fostering their learning experience for later applicability to their own projects.

The content of the box was expanded with a text referring to the description and purpose of the EM&Ts and DATEMATS project.

At the spine of the box the DATEMATS logo, EM&T area, and specific showcased material was inserted (see Fig. 22).

All social media, email, and contact were also added to the part of the logos of the consortium partners. To add the DMT (Design Methods & Tools) into the toolkit, FAD decided to put two additional QR on the toolkits' box with the links of the correspondent references with texts that lead to the information.

Also, and in line with the DATEMATS project values, a more sustainable production of the box with a sustainable "look & feel" was considered.

For this, an improved design of the box and datasheets layout for printing was proposed, reviewed, and implemented. The main inputs were to use a self-assembling

**Fig. 22** Die cut template transfer toolkits final version outside

**Fig. 23** Proposal box Munken polar

corrugated cardboard, sustainable paper, and ink for production. A substitute to the foam board where the materials samples lie in each EM&Ts box was to be found. It was decided to indicate on each box the materials that are being used for the toolkits' production, so a sentence explaining the purpose of the transfer toolkit was added.

Figures 23 and 24 show two options assessed, of which the craft version was the chosen one:

Finally, a booklet for each EM&Ts was designed and put into each box in an envelope. Also, each box was differentiated and marked with a rubber band of the respective colour of each area. The space for the materials samples had been also redesigned and the foam removed.

### *3.3 Phase 08: Production Result of the EM&TS Toolkit's (Final Version)*

Fig. 25 shows some images of the results of the final production of the 20 EM&Ts toolkit boxes:

**Fig. 24** Proposal box craft

**Fig. 25** Final Toolkit images

#### **4 Final Remarks on the EM&Ts Transfer Toolkit Process**

During the process of improving the form and content of the toolkit from the first prototype to the final version it was important to maintain an inspiring and engaging set of materials to showcase a collection of tangible samples of all four EM&Ts, to be used by the target groups/potential beneficiaries such as academia and design professionals.

Also, it was important to stress that the samples shown in the toolkits are representative and not exhaustive, and that there are much more EM&Ts that the ones featured in the boxes.

The lifetime of the toolkits thus its material composition is approximately three years (because of the obsolescence of the materials samples or rather due to the evolution of the EM&Ts).

As part of the dissemination process the datasheets and layout of the box are going to be available as an open-source tool in a downloadable version on the DATEMATS' website.

Finally, the execution process of the toolkit provided a great opportunity to the involved partners' staff to assess and extend their expertise on emerging materials and knowledge transfer tools.

#### **References**

**Gemma Esteban** With a Degree in History from the Universitat de Barcelona, she is a cultural manager with a specialized professional background in the design and creativity sector. She has worked in the editorial field at On Diseño magazine and at Sidi (Selección Internacional del Diseño), managing actions aimed at promoting Spanish design to national and international level. Since 2010, as part of the FAD (Fostering Arts and Design) team, she has been participating in different initiatives that deal with every dimension of design (social, cultural, political and economic) and which have been realized in all types of formats: exhibitions; books and publications; festivals; promotional platforms; awards; congresses, conferences and debates; audiovisual projects; and services for professionals and businesses. She is currently part of the FAD projects department, and a large part of her work is focused on the coordination of Materfad, Barcelona's materials center, projects.

**Geraldine Kann** with studies in International Trade, Business and Marketing and a transversal career in project management in Spain, Germany and Bolivia. In 2018, she completed a postgraduate degree at IED in Trends Research on megatrends and consumer behavior to complete and unify her strong analytical skills to pinpoint the driving forces behind the societal changes and the new opportunities this implies for diverse organizations. Geraldine's main interests range from circular entrepreneurship to emerging materials and technologies, all around food to urban mobility. She also currently works as a Consulting Project Manager at Materfad.

**Veronica Sarbach** is EU Project lead of Materially Srl Impresa Sociale and developed her expertise in project management of EU funded projects addressing material innovation, knowledge transfer and design for a circular economy during her former activity as Innovation Researcher and PM assistant in Material ConneXion Italia. Her active involvement in past and ongoing projects provides her with updated knowledge on design-driven material innovation (Light.Touch.Matters), research and innovation in sustainable material solutions (TRASH-2-CASH), knowledge transfer methodologies and tools. She managed the activities related to the development of creative concepts for Life M3P and currently coordinates the communication of project GRETE, FOSTEX and DATEMATS, as well as the creation of DATEMATS' knowledge transfer toolkit for emerging materials and technologies. She holds a bachelor's degree in product design, gained in 2006 from Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti Milano (NABA) and earned a master's degree in 'Colour design & Technology' from Politecnico di Milano.

**Daniela Amandolese** is member of Materially's EU Project team, developed her expertise during her former activity as Innovation Research and Library Manager in Material ConneXion Italia. Adjunct Professor at Politecnico di Milano (course Industrial Design) member of the Development Team of the Master Nature Generative Temporar IUAV of Venice for which she is visiting professor (courses Eco Materials & Reuse and Trend Research). She collaborated for a couple of years with the Politecnico di Milano as a researcher in the field of innovative materials and technology transfer. In the same years she has been working as a freelancer and has collaborated with companies such as Luxottica, YDF Young Design Factory, Som Group, Vismaravetro. She holds a Master's Degree Product Design from Politecnico di Milano.

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# **Transferring Knowledge from Academia to the Companies: A New Method**

**Aitor Cazón-Martin**

**Abstract** Collaboration between Academia and Industry must be considered as a path to innovation through the exchange of knowledge. Although this collaboration has existed for years by presenting and publishing together new methods in journals or conferences or through lectures or workshops taught by professionals with a focus on daily problems, differences in goals and timing are found as barriers for knowledge transfer. In an ideal scenario, this collaboration should lead to a win-towin situation where companies increase competitiveness as it facilitates the integration and commercialization of new knowledge in their products, while Academia can obtain new research directions and additional financial power. In a real scenario, despite the efforts made to successfully carry out this transfer, there is still work to be done, since the literature shows that current methods used by Academia are not entirely working. In this chapter, the first section contains a review of published documentation that reflect the different practices that are being carried out for the transfer of knowledge between Academia and Industry to understand the current procedures for transferring knowledge, as well as the main channels used, and the barriers identified. The second section describes the new method or guide to facilitate this unidirectional knowledge transfer from Academia to Industry, especially when working with Emerging Materials and Technologies (EM&T). This method combines a Learning stage—to explain the fundamentals about the EM&Ts—and an Applying phase to explain specific strategies of how to come up with ideas to find new opportunities that link the emerging EM&T and the company's product strategy.

#### **1 Literature Review for Knowledge Transfer**

Knowledge transfer has been a primary concern to human being for centuries. Since the very beginning of our history, we have been learning new knowledge with each passing generation in many different life fields that, as a society, we are obliged to transfer to future generations. The knowledge that each generation inherits become

A. Cazón-Martin (B)

Tecnun, University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
<sup>©</sup> The Author(s) 2023

V. Ferraro et al. (eds.), *Materialising the Future*, Research for Development, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25207-5\_4