ABSTRACT
Combining the practices of anthropology and design across a university-industry partnership adds another layer of complexity to the equation for success. Like designers and anthropologists, universities and for-profit industries often have different, sometimes competing, goals and purposes. There is significant evidence that university-industry partnerships have historically faced fairly high rates of failure, at least in the United States. This has prompted a change in how universities and industry are coordinating for collaboration. The class was therefore mainly a mix of anthropology and design students, with a few students from other fields included for additional diversity and insights. Before the development of these new industry-academic partnership models, the prior model of university-industry collaboration had been based on “personal contractual collaborations between university researchers and firm engineers and researchers”. The class was therefore mainly a mix of anthropology and design students, with a few students from other fields included for additional diversity and insights. This mix produced a productive interdisciplinary collaboration.
