The conference Changing the Change seeks to make a significant contribution to a necessary transformation that involves changing the direction of current changes toward a sustainable future. It specifically intends to outline the state-of-the-art of design research in terms of visions, proposals and tools with which design can actively and positively take part in the wider social learning process that will have to take place.

The conference seeks to make a significant contribution to the twofold transformation underway. It specifically intends to outline the state-of-the-art of design research in terms of vision, proposals and tools with which design can actively and positively take part in the wider social learning process that they refer to as "changing the change". The conference has a double aim:

- to consolidate a design research culture and practice orientated towards a constructive critical attitude able to reach  all design disciplines. The conference intends to focus on the way in which the question of "changing the change" is present and widespread throughout the research community and in relation to all design fields: from product design to communication design; from interior design to interaction, service and strategic design; from social design to fashion design

- to outline the state-of-the-art of contributions that design research is today able to bring to social conversation about the future. The conference seeks to bring visibility to significant results. This with particular attention to visions of the future, to feasible solutions and to tools to help bring them into being. It will also enable us to make of the conference and its published output a tool for communication with the outside world; a tool able to demonstrate what design research can offer today to help re-orientate the transformation underway.

In view of these aims, the conference centred on the presentation of research results that could make a positive contribution to "changing the change".  It welcomed contributions that take as their starting point transformations that have already taken place and those underway, and the necessity to re-orient them towards more sustainable outcomes.