"Changing The Change - Design Visions Proposals and Tools" is an international conference on the role and potential of design research in the transition towards sustainability. It seeks to make a significant contribution to the twofold transformation underway. It specifically intends to outline the state-of-the-art of design research in terms of vision, proposals and tools with which design can actively and positively take part in the wider social learning process that we refer to as "changing the change."

The conference has a double aim:
- To consolidate a design research culture and practice orientated towards a constructive critical attitude able to reach all design disciplines. The conference intends to focus on the way in which the question of "changing the change" is present and widespread throughout the research community and in relation to all design fields: from product design to communication design; from interior design to interaction, service and strategic design; from social design to fashion design,

- To outline the state-of-the-art of contributions that design research is today able to bring to social conversation about the future. The conference seeks to bring visibility to significant results. This with particular attention to visions of the future, to feasible solutions and to tools to help bring them into being. It will also enable us to make of the conference and its published output a tool for communication with the outside world; a tool able to demonstrate what design research can offer today to help re-orientate the transformation underway.

In view of these aims, the conference will centre on the presentation of research results that could make a positive contribution to "changing the change". It will welcome contributions that take as their starting point transformations that have already taken place and those underway, and the necessity to re-orient them towards more sustainable outcomes. It hopes to present the widest range of possible world visions, feasible proposals and the design tools that could bring them into being.

The conference will mainly be a meeting point for academics, researchers and research students in the field of design theory and practice. However, in uniting a high academic level with the effort to present concrete results of activities carried out, it will also be of considerable interest to the wider design community and to those economic and social operators who recognise the potential of design practice and design research.

At the heart of the conference will be presentations by design researchers of concrete and documentable research results. Invited keynote speakers contributions will help paint a clearer picture of the common ground from which the conference will take off. The programme will be presented soon.

Themes
The field of interest of the conference is vast and will be divided into various specific themes within which more precise, focused discussion will be possible. This organisation into specific themes will be undertaken after contributions have been selected, so as to take into account what will actually be proposed. For the moment we only indicate an initial, general division into the three themes already introduced: visions, proposals and tools.

Visions: This section will present research results that lead us to imagine possible worlds, or parts of possible worlds. It includes the results of activities in the field of scenario design and more general visions produced by research into specific products, communications and services. It also includes a comparative analysis of visions emerging from design history and from a comparison of different cultures.

Proposals: This section presents results of design research that give rise to concrete solutions containing elements of systemic innovation. They are also legible as concrete steps towards a new generation of sustainable products, services and systems. So, products, services and product and service systems are proposed along with the communicative artefacts that link several actors and artefacts together. It also proposes places for a new everyday life, the activities that take place within them and the new production and consumption networks that emerge from them.

Tools: This section presents the results of research that aims to redefine and develop conceptual and operational tools which enable designers to operate within change and influence its direction. Such tools enable them to participate constructively in new design networks, and deal with emerging problems. Tools may be proposed for conceptualisation and representation, for calculation and appraisal of results or for stimulation and prototype making.

Registration Fee
- 200 Euros until 15 May 2008 
- 300 Euros from 16 May 2008 on

The registration fee, that is the same for presenters and general participants, includes:
- Participation in all sessions of conference
- Coffee break and lunch during the 3 days of conference
- Refreshments in the 3 days of conference
- Booklet with programme and abstracts
- Conference dinner (11 July 2008)