Information for Researchers

At Hasso Plattner Institute we focus on the application of Design Thinking in companies, start-ups and NGOs. This innovation approach helps in increasing team creativity and responding to social change. Thereby, exciting questions are raised for innovation research. To answer them, PhDs, postdocs and professors from Potsdam and Stanford work together closely. Research focuses primarily on team dynamics and the transfer of research to practice.

Currently the following research projects are being conducted at HPI: 

• Can Design Thinking Improve Programming? II Exploring Means to Grow a Shared Vocabulary Between Programmers and Domain Experts (HPI)
• Measuring Creative Collaboration - Evaluating Design Thinking Methods (HPI)
• Innovation Work Places of the Future–Fostering Collaboration Through Leveraging an Under-Used Organizational Resource in the Context of Transformation (HPI)
• Fostering DT education through adaptive digital learning experiences (HPI)
• Design Thinking Medical Record Data: Addressing Innovation Barriers to Doctor-Patient Teamwork (HPI)
• Measuring the Impact of Design Thinking on Software Development Processes and Products (HPI)
• Visual Diagnostics for Design Thinking Teams Using Immersive Virtual Reality (Stanford)
• Investigating Active Tangible Proxies and Augmented Reality for Creativity Support in Remote Collaboration (Stanford)
• The Impact and Value Creation of Team Collaboration (Stanford)
• Understanding, Capturing and Reusing Successful Design Practices (Stanford)
• Human-Centered Research at Crowd Scale Hive: Decentralized, Collaborative Design Through Network Rotation (Stanford)
• Examining the role of design reflection and associated brain dynamics in creativity (Stanford)
• Measuring The Transfer of Design Thinking from Training to Application Embedded Platforms (Continuing) (Stanford)
• Manipulating trust propensity to elucidate the person-to-object-trust-development process (Stanford)

In the Hasso Plattner Design Thinking Research Program (HPDTRP), theoretical and practical aspects of Design Thinking are examined, developed and partially redesigned. Research and teaching are closely linked. Accumulated findings are evaluated in the research and, after a thorough examination, flow into the training of students and professionals.