In the Transdisciplinary Innovation programme, DesignLab develops projects and communities in which collaboration between academia and external partners has a central place. Our community of students, partners from science, industry and society uses the Responsible Futuring approach in projects shaped by urgent societal challenges, with the aim of co-creating futures we want to want to live in.
The Transdisciplinary Master-Insert Programme
Developed and hosted at DesignLab, the curriculum of the Master-Insert program is tailored for master students from all academic disciplines. The program is based on four pillars: real world challenges, transdisciplinarity, personal and professional development and self-directed learning. Last year, the program won the Dutch Higher Education Award. 
Dutch Design Week
Every year in October, Dutch Design Week (DDW) takes place in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. DDW is the biggest design event in Northern Europe, where thousands of designers from all over the globe present their work and ideas. Last year, from the 22nd until the 30th of October, University of Twente took part in lectures, workshops, an exhibition and other activities in three programmes: Up Close & Personal by Design United, Embassy of Health and DRIVE festival.
ECIE
The UT-led Citizen Science pilot "Establishing a Community on Empowering, Inclusive, and Equitable Citizen Science within ECIU (ECIE)” funded under SMART-ER aims to advance the development of citizen science (CS) initiatives, in and among ECIU universities, by focusing on the empowerment, inclusion, and equality of citizens' contributions to science. In the proposed pilot, we aim to establish a Community of Practice on citizen social science within the ECIU network.
ECIE's main research question is “how can we ensure the empowering, inclusive and equitable participation of citizens in citizen science within the ECIU network?” 
A Safer National Police
Due to new technological developments, the value of autonomous systems is becoming increasingly interesting for the National Police. These systems can be used to perform heavy and/or dangerous tasks. In addition, a shortage in the police force, and the prioritization of the police force safety, made the idea to use these robots to perform dangerous tasks emerge. The National Police divided several tasks to universities and other partners, with the aim of creating a community, which can collaborate in the future to share knowledge.
This first project aims to investigate and develop a way in which a robot can place sensors in an indoor space, sensors that can warn of any disruption of the environment. DesignLab will use our committed team, our good academic network, and innovative methodologies, to tackle this challenge.
RRI2Scale
One of the most urgent issues facing European regions is how to introduce and develop regional Research and Innovation (R&I) policies that promote sustainable development and achieve societal inclusion and citizen participation under a framework of democratic governance. In the EU project RRI2SCALE, DesignLab is facilitating a sensemaking process to influence future decisions towards Responsible Innovation.
Senior Maker Movement
The healthcare system will be under a lot of pressure in a few years if it stays the way it is. ActiZ – a branche organization for elderly care – is working on a lot of projects to influence that scenario and one of them is ‘our’ Senior Maker Movement.'
Our research in co-creating with senior citizens focuses on all the steps required to create a product based on their needs. However, can anybody be a designer? What should we organize so ideas are actualized? Is it helpful to discuss with eachother? How are their digital skills? Are current products in the market accessible?
We hope to discover an interesting way to create the lowest threshold in using this technology, but more so encourage self-sustainability.
Incentive
Incentive is a 3 year cross-national program aiming to demonstrate the potential of citizen science through the co-creation, establishment and assessment of Citizen Science Hubs (CSH) in four European Universities. Since 2021, DesignLab has been helping to create these Citizen Science Hubs throughout Europe.
EnschedeLAB
Since 2018, EnschedeLab has been functioning as a rich learning environment for students from the University of Twente, Saxion, ArtEZ/AKI, and ROC Twente. Within this rich learning environment, students work a series of Nano-challenges geared towards making Enschede more sustainable and self-sufficient. At the beginning of 2022, Stephanie Ankone was appointed the new coordinator of EnschedeLab.
Collaborate with us
Have you got a societal challenge that needs the (responsible) use of technology and that could benefit from research insights and creative disruption? Whether you're a researcher, student, business or societal partner: contact us for the possibilties.