Ecological and digital transition: Systemic Design in SMEs open innovation processes

A systemic and collaborative approach is required to facilitate European Small and Medium-sized Enterprises’ ecological and digital transition, able to frame issues within the complexity of the relationships and interconnections that characterize them. In light of this, the paper aims to investigate how the approach and methods of Systemic Design support an "open innovation" process in industrial and interdisciplinary environments. The DigiCirc European project represents the reference case study, offering a space to test the challenges found in the literature with data collected in the field, emphasizing the contribution made by the researchers in Systemic Design of the Politecnico di Torino, both as project partners in the "open innovation" process and through activities supporting the start-ups and SMEs involved. The article is mainly geared toward scholars and design practitioners concerned with "open innovation" and ecological and digital transition within socio-technical systems and in industrial and interdisciplinary environments.