INESC TEC’s Centre for Industrial Engineering and Management (CEGI) will be the coordinator of the European project Service Design for Innovation (SDIN) – Marie Curie Innovative Training Network. Starting in January of next year, the goal with the project is to create an advanced training and research programme in the area of service design and innovation.

Lia Patrício, a researcher at CEGI will be coordinating the SDIN, with the support of Jorge Teixeira, also a researcher at CEGI, and Augusto Fernandes, professor at the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto. The goal with this project is to improve the Service Design and Innovation area, not only in terms of research, but also in terms of its use by companies in three critical sectors: Information and Communication Technologies, Health and Energy.

Furthermore, the project will benefit from the knowledge and experience in SDIN of the network’s partners. Other goals include creating foundations that will make it possible to develop a PhD programme in the area at a European level, as well as a critical mass of researchers, which may serve as agents of change in the academic and business areas.

The project will involve nine PhD students, who will be developing their work in this network, with a strong combination between research and application in the business world. At this level, CEGI will be supervising the work of two students. The SDIN will also provide various training and dissemination activities, such as new curricular units, workshops and conferences.

The project will be concluded in January 2019, and involves various European partners, such as the University of Cologne (Germany), University of Karlstad, University of Linkoping and the County Council of Varmland  (Sweden), Lancaster University  (United Kingdom), Maastricht University  (The Netherlands), IBM Israel and EDP Comercial. The project will receive 2.3 million euros from the European Commission as part of the H2020 Programme.