Whether public or private, there are many centres dealing with research or the transfer of research results. Universities and enterprises appear to be the main actors in this strategic sector.
A significant part of the activities of this system are somehow related with design driven innovation processes.
At the public level it is primarily the university system to operate along the whole chain of design knowledge production and transfer, thanks to a young and composite system of departments, faculties, university consortia, observers, centres, laboratories, company incubators and spin-offs. In such structures converge the different disciplinary contributions fuelling today's design research and research on design, particularly for what regards the relationship with technologies and processes, but also in relation to other disciplines and know-hows.
There are also public or private facilities - such as science and technology parks, service centres, departments and agencies for the territorial development; they work along with the university system and are mainly concerned with the transfer of design knowledge to companies and the territory.
In the private sector many research centres are active inside the companies themselves or they are somehow related to them.