DESIS-Brazil, The Network on Design for Social Innovation and  Sustainability in Brazil is co-founded by a group of universities in Brazil and  connected with other “local” DESIS in different countries, in the framework of  the DESIS International Network.

DESIS-Brazil, sharing all the principles and rules of the international  network, specifically seeks to shed light on the factors that could favour the  unfolding of the potential intrinsic to the practice of social innovation for sustainability in Brazil, drawing up guidelines for the design of solutions,  i.e. a specific set of tools, services and expertise, able to make each case  evolve towards a more effective and accessible form of organisation and so, ultimately, diffusible on a larger scale.

DESIS- Brazil network started up based on a collaboration between Brazil (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, COPPE Institute) and Italy  (Politecnico di Milano). This Brazilian university was partner of the international project CCSL /CCSL-Desex which investigated the potentialities of  collaborative everyday life creativity (social innovations developed by the so  called “creative communities”) in generating and diffusing new and more sustainable ways of living in the urban environments on Brazil, India and China.

The collaboration opened on CCSL activity continued with the course/workshop entitled DESIGN.ISDS: Design, Social Innovation and Sustainable Development held by prof. Ezio Manzini on Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) on 2007 e 2008. A book were also published in Portoghese under the title Design para a inovação social e sustentabilidade.Comunidades criativas, organizações colaborativas novas redes projetuais. Caderno do Grupo de Altos Estudos do PEP/UFRJ - Editora E-Papers, 2008. The course was broadcasted on-line to many universities all over the country.

From this experience, DESIS-Brazil became a network of interested people including, as founding members, participants from some of the most important Brazilian universities:

Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) – COPPE Institute (coordination)
Fluminense Federal University (UFF)
Sao Paulo University (USP)
Federal University of Parana’(UFPR)
Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC)