From March 28 to April 1, the five-day Royal College of Art x Donghua University Short Course for Academics (hereinafter referred to as Short Course) was held online as scheduled. This Short Course attracted 25 faculty members from the College of Textiles, College of Fashion and Design, Shanghai International College of Fashion and Innovation, etc.
(Guests and speakers of the Short Course)
Prof. Naren Barfield, Deputy Vice Chancellor of the RCA, said that despite the complex global context, RCA has always been committed to becoming the most influential practitioner of high-quality art and design education in the world, and is looking forward to continuously expanding the scope of cooperation and deepening the content of cooperation with DHU with the support of Shanghai Municipal Education Commission.
Ms. Gill Caldicott said that in recent years, China has gradually surpassed Malaysia to become the country with the largest number of educational and cultural projects with the UK in Asia. Shanghai is also vigorously developing this industry and has become a hub city for cultural and artistic exchanges. She sincerely hopes that the two parties will develop more cooperation in this field in the future.
(Group Photo of the Participants)
During the Short Course, Tatiana Schofield, Head of Knowledge Exchange, and Emma Wakelin, Director Research, Knowledge Exchange & Innovation, presented their best practices of how university-industry collaboration can improve a university's ability to create new knowledge and break new boundaries. Dr. Nadia Danhash, Innovation RCA Director, introduced how the incubator has made RCA a birthplace of high-quality ideas, how student projects can be commercialized, and how intellectual property can be better protected.
The 5-day modules and the final challenge of the Short Course have been highly appreciated by the participants. While promoting mutual understanding between the staff of the RCA and DHU in terms of design, innovation, entrepreneurial concepts and mechanisms, this Short Course will further drive academic cooperation and exchanges between the two universities in the future to collaborate in various fields and ways.
—Reflections of Participants—
Yujing TIAN, College of Fashion and Design
The informative lectures and interactions of the Short Course have made visible the teaching framework and concept, research and practices, the industry-university-research cooperation mechanism and other aspects of the RCA to us, and have built a bridge for academic, teaching and industry-university-research cooperation between teachers from both sides.
Geng HUANG, College of Fashion and Design
The 5 days of the Short Course was very instructive. The sharing teachers with different academic backgrounds showed me how to observe and solve problems from multiple perspectives.
Yaqin XIA, College of Fashion and Design
This Short Course gave me an inspiration, that is the role of practice in the design and research process could be diverse. In future, I will encourage my students to put more emphasis on the guiding role of practice in design, and to be inspired in collaborative design, particularly, to learn through practice how to enhance the vitality of the community through the design of service content and public service facilities.
Yi DING, College of Textiles
The Short Course gave me a comprehensive and in-depth understanding of RCA's innovation work in textile design, which is very enlightening and is a great reference for my future teaching and research work.
Yanxue MA, College of Textiles
The innovative operation mode of RCA and the many excellent innovation cases showed me the importance of interdisciplinarity, and that team members with different professional backgrounds can make greater contributions to the development of new products.
Jun LI, Shanghai International College of Fashion and Innovation
RCA promotes open innovation and design towards the future human society to break the boundaries of disciplines, the boundary between college and industry, and the boundary between classroom and innovation incubator. Its practice is very enlightening and is a great reference for us to condense the characteristics of fashion creative design discipline, enhance innovative teaching and research, and deepen the integration of production and education.
Nienming CHENG, Shanghai International College of Fashion and Innovation
Cooperation between disciplines and between industries is the key factor in the occurrence of innovation. The sharing guests were passionate, professional and open-minded, and we enjoyed the experience of communicating with them.
Liwen GU, Shanghai International College of Fashion and Innovation
The Short Course organized by our university is very rewarding. First, esteemed people from RCA were invited to give in-depth and professional lectures. Second, the Short Course was well suited to the circumstances of DHU, with focused themes, a high information density and in-depth, professional exchange. Third, teachers who participated in the Short Course had different academic backgrounds and showed a high level of professionalism. I have also learned a lot from those participants in our university, who have developed my thoughts. Thank you very much for providing us with such a great learning opportunity.