ISD Rubika


ISD Rubika is a French grande école of design management located at two sites, in Valenciennes and in Pune. It was founded by the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Valenciennes region.

History

ISD Rubika was founded in 1973 at Valenciennes, aiming to train designers to work in manufacturing and mass retail companies.
Since 1987, ISD has been a member of the Administrative Body of the French chapter of the ACM SIGGRAPH international computer technology association.

Organisation

ISD is part of Rubika, a consortium of institutes including Supinfocom—an institute for 3D animation, film-making and computer graphics—and Supinfogame—an institute for video game, interactivity and simulation. Rubika is located on 3 campuses: Valenciennes, Arles and India. It offers three 5-year European master's degree programs, certified Level 1 by the French government.

Subjects

Since 1987–88 the institute has been offering a Specialised Masters in design management in product design, transportation design or digital design. ISD offers a Management in Engineering Design degree, a Design Management degree, as well as a degree in Industrial Graphics and Digital Design.
Some degrees are accredited by the French Government, and some are awaiting accreditation.

Admissions

The admission process is organised 3 times a year: in February, during the Easter Holidays in April, and in June. It consists of one day of written test and the entrance interview. Candidates are accepted into ISD on the basis of their written exam, interview and personal portfolio.
The written exam tests candidates on
A three-day campus workshop is organised for potential candidates in February and April, to introduce them to design and enable them to choose their specialization. At the end of this workshop students will have created a workbook of product/vehicle creation which might be taken into consideration by the Admission Jury at the time of the entrance tests.

Research

ISD’s Research-Transfer-Innovation unit conducts about 50 applied research projects every year with industrial, commercial and scientific partners. The other field of applied research concerns engineering pedagogy, developed on the basis of industrial forecasting, the evolution of tools and methods of product conception and mobility systems for goods and passengers. ISD has a ‘laboratory collaboration’ agreement with the Engineering Pedagogy lab of the ISEN Group.
ISD’s Scientific Committee includes 12 members from various companies and design institutes and is chaired by Jean-Marie Delbecq, President of the Pôle de compétitivité i-Trans. Thierry Gaudin, founder of the Prospective 2100 association is also a member of the committee.
As a member of the Conférence Régionale des Grandes Ecoles ISD has access to a network of engineering, management, architecture and journalism institutes in the Nord / Pas-de-Calais region. Training programmes and research projects are carried out in collaboration with other institutes, especially the Ecole des Mines de Douai engineering institute and ISEN, or 'Institut Supérieur d’Electronique et du Numérique''.

Students

With 650 graduates thus far, and 340 students in 2008–09,, the ISD community in 2008 won over 50 prizes and design awards in France and abroad: 18 awards were given to ISD students while 34 went to ISD graduates. Nearly 30 organizations awarded the prizes, among others the prestigious Red Dot Awards, iF product design awards, Annual Design Review, and the International Design Excellence Awards