The Lifelong Learning Centre (the Centre) of College of Design and Innovation, Tongji University (Tongji D&I) is a global lifelong design education platform initiated by Tongji D&I. The Centre is devoted to cultivating “3D T-Shaped” innovative talents, promoting cross-cultural and interdisciplinary innovation with design thinking, and helping individuals sustainably renew their knowledge on a lifelong basis.
The Centre advocates “to think about the future development of mankind through design”. The mission of China’s design industry is to seek self-identification and take on global responsibility. In the era of global knowledge network, cross-cultural and interdisciplinary communication, learning and collaboration is a long-term crucial theme. To a certain extent, design is a science of “putting what is learned to statecraft" and its development is closely related to the political, technological, social, economic and cultural environment.
The Centre promotes the integration of technology, creativity and business model with "design thinking", thus to create and lead future demands. Meanwhile, creating and meeting these demands will propel technology application, transformation and invention, which will further promote innovation and entrepreneurship and bring about new businesses, new economy and new models.
The Centre believes that “if there is a problem, there is a need for design”. As long as there is a common desire for a better life, design has its place. Design education should be inclusive, innovative, and funded by both knowledge and practice. Design competence on the other hand, is complex and comprehensive, which includes many crucial new abilities in this modern era, such as the ability to apply knowledge in different contexts, the ability to integrate technology, creativity and business with design thinking, the ability to communicate and express creatively, the ability to discover and reconstruct problems, and digital design thinking, strategic awareness, system view, empathy, leadership, and so on.
The Centre cultivates “3D T-Shaped” innovative talents. The "T-Shaped" innovative talents refer to those who can combine and flexibly apply professional-oriented vertical competence together with integration-oriented horizontal competence when faced with different problems and contexts. As for the “3D T-Shaped” educational framework, it means the organization of all kinds of knowledge, capabilities, space, people, and culture through the allocation of environment and resources to provide a better academic surrounding. It is a concept that can be applied to various scenarios and contexts of all industries.
The Centre agrees with the idea that “lifelong learning is the basic path to achieve sustainable development”. The Agenda for Sustainable Development 2030 was formally adopted at United Nations Headquarters in New York on September 25, 2015. For the first time education and lifelong learning were recognized as an important driving force behind sustainable development, and requirements for lifelong learning methods were put forward in terms of its multifaceted and wide-ranging nature. Traditional education management methods can no longer effectively promote lifelong learning development, and all countries around the world need to establish a new comprehensive governance model. The Centre believes that providing resources for lifelong learning is its responsibility and one of the main reasons for its very existence.
Relying on academic, research and industry resources from Tongji D&I and Shanghai International Institute of Design and Innovation, Tongji University, the Centre offers a series of design-driven innovation courses in the forms of lectures, visits, workshops, brainstorming, presentation road shows and round-table forums.
For detailed course information, please scan the QR code below and follow the WeChat official account of the Centre or contact via 021-65987366 and tongji_lllc@163.com.
