We are seeking a PhD candidate for the Next UPPS research project. The Next UPPS is a collaboration between TU Delft, TU Eindhoven, and University of Twente, encompassing three interlinked PhD research topics that address challenges in transitioning from Analyse to Design to Produce within Ultra Personalized Products & Services (UPPS) in a functional clothing and wearables context. Each PhD project creates depth in one of the phases of the UPPS workflow, while collaborating with the academic and industrial partners to ensure the necessary knowledge transfers between the phases for each of the three case studies. TU/e will be responsible for the 'Design' stage, developing new co-design tools for end-user engagement.
Risk, Identity and Control in UPPS co-creation processes
With the advancement of new technologies such as 3d scanning, 3d printing and the related platforms, designers and users become co-producers of Ultra Personalized Products & Services (UPPS). Through tracking and sharing via cloud services, users become data-producers. A consequence for UPPS is that the existing clear borders between 'designer', 'manufacturer', 'seller', 'consumer' and 'user' are starting to fade and overlap. Soft qualities of personal identity, trust and collaboration need reframing. In this PhD project (TU/e) the candidate will research aspects of perceived risk, responsibility, control and ownership within the context of the Next UPPS innovation process.
Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e,
www.tue.nl) is one of Europe's leading research universities. The Eindhoven area, in the southern part of the Netherlands, is one of Europe's top 'innovation ecosystems', with many high-tech companies and institutes. TU/e is intertwined with many of these companies and institutes, and research at TU/e is characterized by a combination of academic excellence, industrial relevance and societal interweaving.
The Department of Industrial Design (ID) of the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e), founded in 2001, is a maturing department with over 650 students, both Bachelor and Master, and around 40 research staff members and about 10 lecturers. The mission of the department of Industrial Design at TU/e is Research on and Education in the Design of Systems with Emerging Technologies in a Societal Context.
The PhD will be under the supervision of Prof. Stephan Wensveen, Dr. Joep Frens, and Dr. Annika Hupfeld in the Department of Industrial Design at Eindhoven University of Technology. The position is situated within the research group of 'Future Everyday' and the Wearable Senses Lab.
The TU/e Wearable Senses Lab is an internationally leading research lab in the Netherlands regarding the designing of Smart Material Product Service Systems, specifically designs that incorporate wearable computing, smart materials and parametric and generative design. Wearable Senses follows a research-through-design approach in which creative transfers and real-life testing facilitate cross-overs to other disciplines.
Job description
The main carrier for the PhD-project is a 'research through design' approach to gain insight and knowledge through actually designing and realizing (parts of) UPPS and carrying them with the partners through the different phases of maturity. New methodologies, tools, theories and frameworks need to be developed to combine the technological opportunities with social-economical acceptance to create novel concepts for product-service systems. Successful concepts are then used to develop a methodology that carry the concepts further towards successful market introductions.
The project should lead to scientific output (doctoral thesis, publications in journals and conferences), industry output (workshops with partners in industry and education, and design guidelines for Ultra Personalised Product Service Systems) and societal relevance.