Rio DESIS Lab is a UFRJ Design, Social Innovation and Sustainability laboratory coordinated by Professor Carla Martins Cipolla. It carries out initiatives that integrate several disciplinary areas to support citizens in the city of Rio de Janeiro to act as agents of change, promoting quality of life and sustainability.

The design process aims to support collaborative processes through the idealization and development of solutions, bringing innovation techniques to be social, environmental objectives. The solutions are developed with citizens and institutions, starting from the identification of local demands and focus on the promotion of new interactions and interpersonal relationships for the co-production of value aiming at a broad benefit of society.

The Laboratory is part of the DESIS Network (Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability), which brings together more than 50 laboratories in universities around the world (http://www.desisnetwork.org). The international coordination of the network is currently at Rio DESIS Lab.

Noteworthy recent projects developed with national and international support on the themes of Product and Service Design, Innovation Management, Social Entrepreneurship include: USIS - Support Unit for Social Innovation at UFRJ; LASIN - Latin American Social Innovation Network; DxCC - Design for Collaborative Cities - Participatory processes in public spaces (in Rio de Janeiro: OPDMB - The Project of My Neighborhood); Lab Escola 3D - Technology, design and culture "maker"; and TRANSIT - Transformative Social Innovation Theory.