Elena Vai

Elena Vai is a researcher at the Department of Architecture, University of Bologna, where she collaborates with the Advanced Design Unit, a community of professors and experts who deals with design cultures and their continuous innovation, with the aim to create new systems of mediation to face the multiple challenges of complex contemporary phenomena.

Since 2019 she has been coordinating the activities of the Research Center on Cultural and Creative Industries (CRICC) at the Department of the Arts. The enabling infrastructure operates in the field of design processes, digital technologies for knowledge management, communication and cultural heritage through Advanced Design methodologies, for the strengthening of the regional production system with a specific vocation for the CCI sector.

The main area of activity is focused on the design of relations, processes and methodologies to conceive innovative products and services, integrating research, digital and enabling technologies, creativity, culture and knowledge related to: performing arts, audiovisual, fashion and design.

Her research refers to creative practices, embodied creativity, and advanced design as agents of social transformation among individual, community and territory, with reference to the development of innovative cultural and creative ecosystems for cultural and human reactivation of cities.

Since 2023 she has been a member of the Strategic Thematic Group "Design for Societal Transformation" directed by the Research Institutes of Sweden (RISE), within the EIT on Culture and Creativity.

Since 2021, she is Associate Editor of the scientific journal diid - industrial industrial design.