Kina - Chinese-Norwegian Network for Industrial Design

Research and education activities between NTNU and XUAT were established already in 1989. The initiator was the Department of Architectural Design, History and Technology, which has carried out several projects in Xian (a.o. financed by NORAD), and who gr adually involved other departments at NTNU (a.o. Hydraulic and Environmental Engineering, Social Anthropology, Production and Quality Engineering and Product Design) and XUAT. NTNU has granted strategic funds for the co-operation between Xian University of Architecture and Technology and NTNU in 2002, 2004, 2005 and 2006. In 2005 NTNU has set up a permanent branch office at XUAT to promote future co-operation between the parties. The post-graduate courses and XUAT/NTNU joint arrangements are the motor f or future collaboration and expansion. The Department of Product Design contributes since 2003 to initiative with the course: Sustainable product and service design. The goal of the course is teach Chinese and Norwegian students how to apply sustainable d esign in practice. The project work included in the course is based on a case study from Xian focusing on future sustainable solutions. During our last visit to XUAT in October 2005, we discussed the potential for other design projects and research topic s with our partners and came up with four fields of common interests: design and production, management and cooperate identity, culture and design semantics, and aesthetics and form giving. We consider it necessary to initiate the pre-project in order t o deepen the discussion on common research and education approaches, to strengthen the existing relationships in industrial design in both institutions, and to manifest and realize our cooperation through a main project.