The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) just made it to the top of Fast Company's United States of Innovation list.  The list highlights 50 projects that are tacking the challenges facing our country today.  RISD recently launched the pilot executive education program, Design for Manufacturing.  The program "integrates concepts of strategic design thinking and innovation as they apply to the manufacturing environment. These concepts, combined with entrepreneurial application will help leaders in the manufacturing sector uncover new business, development opportunities and management strategies for growth." Classes include design thinking, product design, and 3-D printing and prototyping among others.  


RISD’s program is highlighted in a recent report, Industrial Design: A Competitive Edge for U.S. Manufacturing Success in the Global Economy, released by the National Endowment for the Arts in April.  This report makes the case for industrial design and provides best practice models for replication and adaptation in other parts of the country.
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NP is proud to have supported RISD through the program's launch and development and to have participated as an interviewee for the NEA report.

Crain's Chicago Business recent feature on, "The Incredible Shrinking HQ" points on trends in how corporations are re-imagining their headquarters when they decide to make a move.  While many of the examples focus on Chicago the data and observations have value to any city thinking about how to balance business recruitment with home grown business development.  NP's Kevin Hively speaks to that very question in the article - no silver bullets here but important considerations for any community to think about when it comes to economic development. ​

​The City of New Haven, CT and Southern CT State University (SCSU) recently launched an innovative bioscience career ladder program that will provide career pathways within science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields.  Beyond new curriculum, it's supported by 98,000 s.f. of new cutting edge academic and lab space and will connect to the large concentration of bioscience companies in New Haven.

NP provided various types of support to the unprecedented collaboration between the City and SCSU. As part of the work, NP conducted a life sciences workforce study for the City of New Haven and the Economic Development Corporation of New Haven and also developed a series of key findings concerning "pipeline" development.  NP is proud to be part of such an important effort to link New Haven residents to potential jobs in the city's burgeoning life sciences sector.  

For more info on the program check out the recent op-ed in the New Haven Register.

Green Building and Design featured NP’s Kevin Hively in its Big Ideas in Urban Design feature this month.  So, what’s the big idea?  Economic design - mixing behavioral science with design principles to support economic outcomes.  

Here’s a bit from the article:

“To some degree, behavioral science has been used in transportation-systems design, particularly in ideas like traffic calming. But it has not yet penetrated into place-activation strategies, programming models, and development patterns. We have not yet learned to apply the concepts of consumer decision-making and experience into the field of urban design.”

Make sure to check out the full article including the other six big ideas from leading urban thinkers.