Roles of product designers in social innovation: Cases from Portugal

This thesis work is based on the subjects of Design and Social Innovation, considering both as fields that can contribute to the expansion of each other. Design is already a well-stablished profession within the Industrial sectors, yet a new wave of thought calls for its implementation in problems that are of a social nature, and that would complement the work of technical innovation which is usually assumed by designers. To present a panorama of how designers could be better integrated into Social Innovation, a literature review of works dealing with the concepts of roles of Design, social innovation, Design and social aspects, and practices of Design is presented. Followed by a field study consisting of a survey of ten examples from Portugal; a country with the particularity of having an already striving Social Innovation sector. This context gives Portugal the characteristic of serving as a model case to research about the route taken by Social Innovation initiatives and the possibilities for future designers. With the aim of founding ways to facilitate the incorporation of designers to this field. A summary of the main aspects of these examples are presented and discussed; as well as a general description of what could be the general situation in Portugal. It ends with the recommendation of two possible paths to be followed by designers wanting to enter the field of Social Innovation.