About the project

Dside stands for Design Supporting InterDisciplinary Environments. It is a user-centred biomedical product innovation project coordinated by the Institute of Design at AHO. Dside involves both institutional and commercial partners within the Oslo MedTech environment.

Goal: The two main – and interrelated – objectives are to: i) create future-oriented processes for companies developing Med Tech products, and ii) develop new innovative Med Tech products that are facilitated by these very processes.

Central research questions: What are feasible roles for, and ‘competence utilization’ from, design in an innovative high tech research environment? What can be considered as feasible methods and technologies facilitating the utilization of such roles and competences in interdisciplinary Participatory Design teams? How are these roles perceived by different stakeholders and how do they relate (or not relate) to established (or possible) models of innovation and product development?

Analytical frames: Miscellaneous Innovation, Team, Creativity and Design Theories.

Methods: Constructive ‘participatory’ Action Research (PAR) in interaction with a more reflective and analytical method utilizing the M-swot method.

Deliverables: At least one marketable product for each company and some additional product concepts proposing supplementary market opportunities. Six peer reviewed papers in international well recognised journals or conferences. One PhD thesis. A developed method where RP interacts with a multitude of other tools.

Funding: Research Council of Norway (NFR) BIA programme (User-driven Research based Innovation).