"Inspiration does exist, but it must find you working." Pablo Picasso
This week UID had two visitors from the PIEp project, a national long-term project sponsored by VINNOVA, of which the goal is to increase the innovation capacity in Sweden through increased cooperation between research, education and industry. The five universities involved are Luleå University of Technology, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, CTMH, Jönköping University and Umeå Institute of Design. UID is the only one in the design field.
The visitors were Sofia Ritzén, senior lecturer at KTH and Susanne Nilsson, innovation manager for St. Jude Medical. Together with Monica Lindh Karlsson, senior lecturer and Catharina Henje, researcher and MA interaction designer, they used the week to write papers, individually and together. Susanne Nilsson and Sofia Ritzén came to UID because of its atmosphere and setting. The two visitors felt very welcome at UID and they had access to everything they needed. Catharina and Monica are active in both the research network and the teachers& network of PIEp.
The four paper writers are prototyping this cooperation and they hope to stimulate others in the PIEp network. They describe their work as flowing, productive and stimulating, and they emphasize the significance of going away from your regular environment since that really keeps your focus. They get new angles of approach from each other and are learning to use other methods for their process and work. All of them felt mutual trust and room to explore. The aspects they are talking about are the factors that create innovation possibilities. As a bonus they even had time to obtain some insight in each other&s areas.
