Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (Skoltech)

The Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (Skoltech) is a private graduate research university in Skolkovo, Russia, a suburb of Moscow. Established in 2011 in collaboration with MIT, Skoltech will educate global leaders in innovation, advance scientific knowledge, and foster new technologies to address critical issues facing Russia and the world. Applying international research and educational models, the university integrates the best Russian scientific traditions with twenty-first century entrepreneurship and innovation. Skoltech is organized as a permanent, modern, international university with a physical campus for research and education in Skolkovo, Russia. Skoltech will initially have five primary education and research programs, corresponding to priority areas as defined by Russia: these will be Programs in Information Science and Technology, Energy Science and Technology, Biomedical Science and Technology, Space Science and Technology, and civilian Nuclear Science and Technology. Each of these Programs will provide Master’s and Ph.D. degrees to be granted by Skoltech.

Delft University of Technology

The Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering (IDE), Delft University of Technology (TUD) is among the oldest and largest university-based design programmes in the world. The Faculty has an integrative vision on product design that covers user/consumer, aesthetics, interface, technology, business and organisational aspects related to product innovation. Its research objective is to foster sustainable well-being by exploring, generating and transferring knowledge and technologies for industrial design. The Industrial Design department (ID) of the Faculty studies how people experience, use and interact with products within a specific context. During the past years, TUD has been actively participating with several projects in Creative Industry Scientific Programme (CRISP – www.crispplatform.nl), a large Dutch initiative aimed at consolidating the leadership and growth of the Dutch Design Sector and Creative Industries, by design of Product Service Systems and by generating and disseminating the relevant knowledge, tools and methods. With respect to EU projects, TUD-IDE is involved in several large FP7 projects; e.g., the Living Lab project (www.livinglabproject.org) and Light Touch Matters (http://www.light-touch- matters-project.eu/). TUD provides access to its living lab at Rotterdam RDM campus, as well as potential access to the network of European living labs (through the SusLAB network) and newly developed Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions living lab.

The University of Edinburgh

The University of Edinburgh was established in 1583 by a Royal Charter granted by James VI and has been providing outstanding educational opportunities to students from around the world for more than 400 years. The university is internationally acclaimed and proud to mix tradition with innovation, heritage with trailblazing and outstanding academic credentials with an open, friendly culture, all located in one of Europe’s most inspiring and vibrant cities. The University of Edinburgh is ranked 17th in the world by the 2013-14 and 2014-15 QS rankings. It is ranked 11th in the world in arts and humanities by the 2012–13 Times Higher Education Ranking.

The Centre for Design Informatics is situated between the Schools of Design and Informatics at the University of Edinburgh. Research brings together two diverse disciplines to transform the ways in which we work, live, care for each other and play. Combining scientific data processing with creative concept development, it allows us to harness massive connectivity, analytic power and industrial-strength simulation to design new products, capabilities and services. Dedicated desk-based research areas, design studios, maker spaces and ‘fab labs’, with access to world class computing across vision and robotics, interaction, sensor networks, and synthetic biology. http://www.designinformatics.org

University of Electro-Communications

The University of Electro-Communications is a national university in the city of Chōfu, Tokyo, Japan. It specialises in the disciplines of computer science, the physical sciences, engineering and technology. It was founded in 1918 as the Technical Institute for Wireless-Communications. The University of Electro-communications was originally founded in the Azabu district, Tokyo city as the Technical Institute for Wireless-Communications by Wireless Association in 1918. The Technical Institute for Wireless-Communications was transferred to the Ministry of Communications in 1942 and renamed to the Central Technical Institute for Wireless-Communications in 1945. Following to the transfer from the Ministry of Communications to the Ministry of Education in 1948, the University of Electro-communications was established as a national university in 1949. The campus was moved to the city of Chōfu, Tokyo in 1957. The university has been run by the National University Corporation since 2004.

University of California, Santa Cruz

The University of California, Santa Cruz is a public university like no other in California, combining the intimacy of a small, liberal arts college with the depth and rigor of a major research university. Since its founding in 1965, UCSC has earned international distinction as a university with high-impact research and an uncommon commitment to teaching and public service. In 2014, UC Santa Cruz was rated 1st in the world for research influence by the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, tied with MIT, and the UCSC Social Sciences Division was ranked 7th in the United States by the Center for a Public Anthropology for faculty impact in the news media. In 2013, UCSC was ranked 11th in the annual Leiden Ranking, which measures the scientific performance of 500 major universities worldwide. Within the Social Sciences Division, the Department of Anthropology is internationally recognized for its paradigm-shifting theoretical and ethnographic work. With its thematic focus of “culture and power” and “emerging worlds,” the anthropology department has re-theorized the object of anthropological inquiry to comprehend power, inequality, heterogeneity, contingency, and continuous change by attending to the study of world-making practices, past, present, and future.