News

Paid internships for design breakthroughs

Published 1 November 2011

Global sports and lifestyle brand Puma is offering paid internships to University of Brighton students who come up with ideas that could lead to the next big breakthroughs in sustainable designs.

Puma executives flew in from the USA to join 200 students for the launch of the Puma Sustainable Design Challenge at the university's Sallis Benney Theatre in Grand Parade, Brighton.

Puma has linked up exclusively with the University of Brighton which, according to Louis Joseph, the company's global Director of Strategic Innovation, is "an incredibly energising place".

He told the audience: "The university here in Brighton is one of ideas, and this is what Puma is all about... changing the way we do business through the lens of sustainability."

Undergraduates studying a range of subjects including 3D design, fashion, architecture and sports science, are forming teams of two to work on new designs including footwear for the street, track or pitch, performance-enhancing innovations for Puma's America's cup sailing team, packaging, apparel, accessories, and sports equipment.

Dr Jonathan Chapman, who leads the university's Sustainable Design MA course, said: "Designs could also be a process, a new way of printing on textile, a different approach to sustainable manufacture or a new approach to creating sustainable retail spaces and store concepts."

The two winners, to be announced 23 March next year, will each receive one-year paid internships to develop their new ideas through to market. They can choose to work at one of Puma's centres in London, Boston (USA), or Herzogenaurach, the company's headquarters in Germany.

Runners up will receive Puma bikes and the third-place team will win $250 vouchers.

The link with Puma was forged when the company asked Dr Chapman to advise the company on new sustainable designs.

Dr Chapman explained said the world was facing a "crisis of unsustainability" caused by behaviour: "It can be traced back to its early cultural and educational roots, where we are conditioned into believing we are somehow divorced from nature and we can conduct ourselves however we like, without consequence.

"Through our drive toward a faster, lighter, brighter and more technologically-advanced world, we have wreaked havoc throughout all natural systems that support life on earth. During the past 60 years alone we have stripped the world of a quarter of its topsoil and a third of its forest cover. In total, one third of the planet's resources have been consumed within the past four decades.

"By working with forward-thinking global brands like Puma we can provide them with clear directions and methods for moving toward a more sustainable business model."

Dr Chapman said: "There are three ways for designers to respond to the accusation that we are personally responsible for trashing the planet: We can argue and deny it, cringe with guilt and carry on, or evolve our practices and work to become part of the solution.

"This competition is about the third way – being part of the solution.

"The sustainability problem can be a thorny one, one that is difficult and sometimes tricky to handle; through this strategic engagement with Puma, we hope to give pace, depth and new meaning to the 'search for solutions'; working closely with this leading global brand in embracing the sustainability context, in celebratory, positive and solution focused ways."

200 students from a wide range of disciplines attended the launch