The creation of the IDC Chair of Innovation, Design, and Interculturality is the latest step taken at the UPV for research, training, promotion, and diffusion of Design and Innovation.

The business chairs at universities represent a way to transfer knowledge to society and capture talent from institutions and companies.

Motivation

The IDC Chair in Innovation, Design, and Interculturality arises as a confluence of the search for training structures of professional profiles that manage the complete cycle of innovation, design, and manufacturing until reaching the market in intercultural environments. In other words, professionals from any geographical area know how to manage decision-making processes related to design in one place and, in turn, manage production in another culturally different place. But it is also about turning this relationship between supplier and client into a source of co-creation and the generation of new business opportunities.

This initiative has arisen from Alejandro Hernández, an expert in the strategic integration of product design and marketing in companies and a former student of Industrial Design Degree at ETSID, who, after decades of professional experience with Asian suppliers, has detected a common need regarding employee training in Spanish companies to deal with this situation. According to ICEX, 300 Spanish companies are working with Asian suppliers.

Once again, the fact that alumni return to their home university and brings new challenges and solutions for unique needs to the institution makes alumni the best promoters of any university.

Talent Recruitment

The demand of the sponsor of the Chair, the company CSAL, Center for Academic and Linguistic Services led by Huang Yi, whose main activity is the location of advanced talent to collaborate with Chinese universities and institutions, must also be mentioned. In attracting this talent, UPV's training, research, and transfer model have been identified as a pioneer and with good results - especially in Industrial Design, leaders in Spain.

One of the universities interested in this talent recruitment is Peking University through its public company known as Peking University Resources, which is listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange and has a division exclusively dedicated to this mission of identifying talent around the world. Guangzhou Design Week was another organization that, following the partnership between the port cities of the Silk Road, Guangzhou and Valencia, proposed our city's presence through its design representatives in this event. Through video projections to support the Chair's creation, these organizations participated in the event.