From Invention to Consumption: electronic textiles

'From Invention to Consumption: electronic textiles' is a joint project between Nottingham Trent University, Goldsmiths, University of London and University College London to support a series of workshops and a scoping study that will clarify the role of Design in the process of innovation - what BIS refers to as the 'innovation ecosystem'. It focuses on inventions in textiles, particularly where computing power is built into the textile, so-called 'e-textiles'. It brings together different types of people who are relevant to innovations that can take this relatively un-developed technology from the lab to the shop, transforming interesting materials into useful things. The project starts from the assumption that design is useful to this process because one of its roles is to help inventors and consumers communicate, by transforming the possibilities that can be built into materials from potentials that may not look engaging, to things that can become part of, and perhaps change, our lives.

The three workshops in 2014 will bring together people from universities, large corporates and SMEs with freelance designers to focus discussion on e-textiles and to work together to feed their collective understanding and experience into the scoping study. The scoping study will review research and examples of recent innovation in textiles, as well as theories of innovation and research on 'design thinking'. It will look at the social/ cultural aspects of developments in textiles as well as likely lines of future development indicated by specific features of contemporary culture. Together, by bringing key individuals and organisations together, the workshops and the scoping study will clarify directions for future research and practical collaborations.

Bridging the divide between academic researchers, practitioners, SMEs and large corporates, the work will have direct impacts on participants from these organisations as well as on public discourse. The subject matter of the research - innovation in e-textiles - has strong potential to engage audiences outside academia, given its connection to health, sport, to 'wired' culture and to cutting edge design. The two parts of the project - a scoping report on the innovation trajectory of e-textiles and a series of workshops - will impact in different ways on these groups.

The commercial participants in the project - both large and small - stand to gain directly insights into the future trajectory of innovation in e-textiles. The scoping work and the workshops are likely to identify opportunities that companies can take up in the process of market development for the technology, facilitated through further focused research. The work will directly impact on the project research fellow, broadening their experience and adding to their personal network of contacts and consequently their future employability. Participating PhD students will also benefit directly from their engagement with the workshops.

The project team has extensive experience of delivering impactful research, each engaging with the subject matter from a distinct perspective. Jefferies' extensive work at the interface between art and computing, Drazin's profile in design-ethnography and Fisher's previous work to understand the material basis of consumption in clothing and packaging give the team appropriate expertise and capacity to deliver impact through this work. This is dependent on strong cross-disciplinary participation externally, and internally through dissemination among the project participants. Both aspects will be catered for by employing a full time project research fellow for five months. This individual will work with the PI to actively maintain a project blog, Facebook group and web-page as well as preparing press-releases as appropriate, working with the NTU press office.

These on-line and press routes will be used to log progress with the workshops and to connect with the creative art and design constituency that needs to be aware of the project, if not involved, in order to maintain its profile. The blog, web-page and Facebook group will be mirrored by the NTU Advanced Textiles blog. This online dissemination will be complemented by conventional means to alert people to the work by including printed matter, flyers etc. in the participant packs for the three workshops. This strategy (of online dissemination supplemented by real-world information) should mean that the online manifestation of the project is effective in disseminating the work well beyond the workshop participants.