Biography
Chris Doering is a researcher and co-project manager responsible for the development and coordination of the Ph.D programme "Eco-Social Innovation by Design" at Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts (HSLU, Switzerland), in collaboration with the National Institute of Design (NID, India).
In his previous role as project coordinator at the Center for international Migration and Development and the German Development Agency GIZ, he implemented design research and co-creation methods for developing the startup and grassroots innovation ecosystem in Sri Lanka. As a design and innovation consultant, Chris supported the platform Connective Cities and the Change-Darer team led by Daniela Marzavan in the development and implementation of interactive learning formats for sustainable development and crisis communication for municipal decision-makers in city administrations around the world. As interim head of the department for Process Design and Transformative Methods at the Fraunhofer Center for Responsible Research and Innovation, he applied participatory and speculative design methodologies to make future scenarios tangible, e.g. for regional development, urban security and desaster management or the municipal refugee health care system. Chris was also one of the co-founders of the community grassroots innovation and design laboratory Open Design City.
Chris received his Ph.D from Bauhaus University Weimar through a research project on the information exchange in the context of the sustainable transformation of urban energy infrastructure. He studied product and industrial design at Bauhaus University Weimar and at the University of Fine Arts of Hamburg (HFBK). He first entered the field of design for sustainable development while working with Michael Braungart and the international Cradle-to-Cradle-community and through his final thesis project on eco-design principles.
He is a member of the federal German Ecodesign-Award advisory board, memebr of the Global Innovation Gathering network (gig), the German Society for Design Theory and Research (DGTF) and engages in voluntary work—within his local neighborhood initiative as well as in grassroots innovation projects in the global south. Chris believes that groundbreaking ideas are created where diverse perspectives and competences meet. Sustainable development and eco-social innovation need an open exploration of the possible and the desirable by actors from research, politics, business and society—and the determination to put visions for the future into practice, right here and now.
