The Design Innovation Center is a research and teaching entity jointly established by China Academy of Art (CAA) in collaboration with Peking University, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and the Hangzhou Municipal People’s Government. It serves as a key platform in the strategic framework of design disciplines at CAA. Addressing the critical demands of national and local manufacturing transformation and upgrading, the Center is driven by the deep integration of culture and technology, powered by digital creativity, and focused on design intelligence as a breakthrough. It emphasizes industry-academia integration and collaboration, closely aligned with industrial development trends, and deeply partners with leading enterprises in talent cultivation, curriculum development, and project incubation, providing a full-chain growth environment for students and startup teams. The Center offers research directions including Design Intelligence and Cultural and Creative Design, covering master’s and doctoral levels. Organized around four research institutes: Smart Cultural Tourism, Design Intelligence, Brand Innovation, and Urban-Rural Development, it cultivates versatile design talents with cross-disciplinary thinking and research capabilities.

The Center houses a number of platforms, including the Design Intelligence Award (DIA), the Design Intelligence Union (DIU), the DIA Innovation Incubation Award, the Ministry of Education Key Laboratory of Philosophy and Social Sciences for Design-AI lab, the Zhejiang Provincial Key Laboratory of Smart Kitchen System Integration, and the Color Design Research Center. In collaboration with 20 industry-leading enterprises, it has established industry-education integration training bases, systematically constructing a full-chain talent cultivation system of “platform-driven, enterprise-proposed, university-answered, industry-transformed,” providing support for teaching, research, and industry-academia collaboration. Leveraging its open and shared experimental and innovation environments, the Center continuously expands students’ practical opportunities in design innovation, cultural innovation, and social innovation. Graduates are active in frontier fields of their respective industries.

Faculty and Staff:

The Center currently has 20 faculty and staff members, including 13 full-time teachers, 6 professors, 2 associate professors, and 2 visiting professors.

Student Body:

The Center currently has 159 enrolled students, including 134 master’s students and 25 doctoral candidates.

Director: Lu Tao

Deputy Director: Xiong Na