Tongji Design Week 2018 kicked off on October 19 and lasted for nearly one month. In that time, over 30 academic conferences, lectures, exhibitions, forums and workshops were held, including the "Emerging Practice" Design Research and Education Conference(EPC), and the Design for Collaborative Cities Conference(DxCC). Tongji Design Week 2018 engages more than 80 prominent scholars from China, the United States, UK, Germany, Australia, Italy, Finland, Norway, Spain, and India and many international non-profit organizations directors, artists, designers, as well as design educators and practitioners. More than 10,000 people participated in the activities of Tongji Design Week including teachers and students from various universities, colleagues in the design industry and members of the public.

Tongji Design Week, held every autumn in Tongji University, is an important academic forum in the week of "Shanghai Design Capital". It carries the mission of developing platform for cross-border communication in innovative design education, research and social practices, which aims at enhancing the "design-driven innovation" capabilities, promoting Shanghai's global impact as "Science and Innovation Center" and design discipline development. This year was the seventh year of holding Tongji Design Week. This event focuses on "exploring the relationship between design and communities within the social innovation context" with this year’s theme being“New Communities".

Tongji Design Week 2018, through 11 international conferences and forums, 9 major international exhibitions, as well as 10 workshops, lectures and performances, disseminated new trends in design education and design research as well as demonstrated major achievements in design research and education, as well as latest achievements in promoting community integration, social innovation, sustainable design education and practice, maker culture buildingand extending design education to education fronts in recent years.

The Tongji Design Week founder, Dean of Tongji University College of Design and Innovation, Professor Lou Yongqi said," Communities are the source of wisdom and the cradle of innovation. They are the power of change." In his opinion, in the era of global knowledge network new communities of innovative talents all over the world are redefining every phase of the innovation chain, from R&D to production, design, service, and distribution. Emergent creative communities haveinfluenced the whole innovation ecosystem which itself is undergoing a radical change.This change has seen designers gradually become active participants or initiators in social innovation projects. They adopt design thinking to construct the culture of the community and organize events and activities to enhance its social cohesion. They have become the driving force behind innovation by activating interactions within and outside the community. Eachdesign-driven new community is promoting positive social transformation and, as such, each community deserves to be thefocus of design studies.