Industrial Affiliates
Stanford encourages interaction with companies and welcomes industry participation in our research. Learn more about the benefits of joining an affiliate program
About the CDR Affiliate Program
The CDR Industry Affiliate Program provides a unique relationship between academic research and industry, and connects corporations with a community of leading faculty and student researchers in their fields. For a fee, the program enables companies to become affiliate members of the Center for Design Research, to interact with our researchers, while supporting our students and advancing academic knowledge in our fields of expertise.
Through your association with us, you gain access to innovative developments in design research. You develop relationships with faculty and researchers and get to know and work with excellent students. Most of all you become part of our community that works to advance design in robotics, engineering education, haptics, human interaction, human innovation, food, organizations and business.
The CDR Industry Affiliate Program will use and develop open-source software, and it is the intention of the CDR Industry Affiliate Program that any software will be released under an open source model.
There are two tiers of membership, with different associated benefits: Community Affiliates and Research Affiliates. Companies can join the program at any time for a 12-month period.
The Center for Design Research (CDR) Industry Affiliate Program
The CDR Industry Affiliate Program has two options: Community Affiliation and Research Affiliation, with different objectives, benefits, and associated fees.
Community Affiliation
The CDR Community Affiliate has a membership fee of $30,000 per year, and its primary purpose is to facilitate a community in shaping the future of design. CDR Community Affiliate benefits include:
- Invitation to talks and seminars
- Participation in discourse shaping the future of design and design research
- Engage with faculty, staff, postdocs, and students
- Opportunity to recruit and engage with excellent students, including posting internships and jobs
- Participation in annual events
Research Affiliation
The CDR Research Affiliate has a membership fee of $100,000 per year, with the purpose to facilitate engagement in research activities of the Center for Design Research. Research projects typically involve a combination of engineering design synthesis, design tool development and design thinking studies. Benefits of this tier include:
- Annual meeting
- Opportunities for informal interaction on research projects
- Custom host visits to CDR to discuss and provide input on research topics
- Active engagement with faculty, researchers and students
Benefits overview
Benefits | Community ($30k) | Research ($100k) |
Invitation to talks and seminars | x | x |
Participate in the discourse of the future of design and design research | x | x |
Engage with faculty and students | x | x |
Opportunity to recruit and engage with excellent students including posting internships and jobs | x | x |
Participation in annual events | x | x |
Annual meeting | x | |
Opportunities for informal interaction on research projects | x | |
Custom host visits to CDR for discussing and providing input on research topics | x | |
Active engagement with faculty, researchers and students | x |
For more information about participating faculty and related Stanford research, visit our CDR Team page.
All CDR Affiliates are subject to Stanford University Policies for Industry Affiliates Programs.