Strategic Partnerships

Avantika and Manini rearranging wetland propagated plants as part of the Biopod project.

In Strategic Partnerships, we and our partners:

  • work together to create new knowledge.
  • learn together to engage people, cultures and practices.
  • collaborate to complement each other’s strengths.
  • dream up partnerships that enact new and better futures.

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What we do

Connecting RISD with partner organizations across the broader worlds of art, design and scholarship, in Strategic Partnerships we help bring to life mutually beneficial, collaborative research activities that address big questions about creativity, sustainability, social equity and innovation. Through these collaborations, our partners tap into creative processes and a deep understanding of advanced methods and materials that are integral to RISD, but often difficult to replicate in many corporate or institutional settings. 

The collaborative projects we foster connect curiosity about the world with creative approaches and frameworks for problem solving. Our team challenges our partners to explore questions and processes alongside RISD students and faculty, toward generating new systems, knowledge and ways of working.

In partnering with us, organizations spanning a spectrum of industries discover the transformative value of RISD’s approach to hands-on learning and conceptual thinking. Through studios and a curriculum that emphasizes open-ended, iterative inquiry, ideas develop via engagement with peers and faculty, and work is refined through productive critique and feedback. In this manner, our partnership projects center on shared learning experiences that help build a culture of collaboration.

Contact us to get started
more than 20 test tubes filled with different colored materials hang suspended from a ceiling inside a dark room with students standing in the background
Small Cabin Inspired by Thoreau
three smartphone-scaled images from the Emmett Till Memory Project app
students work together on a 3D model of the bridge
several large patches of orange-brown sand line a long room with walls featuring brown and white wave patterns
Arduino circuitry inspired by the structure of pine cones
more than 20 test tubes filled with different colored materials hang suspended from a ceiling inside a dark room with students standing in the background
Small Cabin Inspired by Thoreau
three smartphone-scaled images from the Emmett Till Memory Project app
students work together on a 3D model of the bridge
several large patches of orange-brown sand line a long room with walls featuring brown and white wave patterns
Arduino circuitry inspired by the structure of pine cones

Attention RISD faculty

Discover funding opportunities for creative research

If you’re looking for ways to support partnered projects, pedagogy and more, visit our listing of grants, research funds and other funding options, updated regularly as new and ongoing opportunities arise.

Discover funding opportunities

Explore Strategic Partnerships

About Us

Meet the Strategic Partnerships team and learn more about partnering with us.

Ways to partner

Explore the many collaborative frameworks we offer to partner organizations across a wide range of industries and creative fields.

Recent partnerships

Learn about our current and other collaborations and how they advance knowledge in the areas of art, design, scholarship and more.