The Design Research Lab (DRLab) is an applied research unit. which bases its activities on the belief that design should play an increasingly considerable role in local development, both economically and civically.

DRLab makes use of the flexible methodologies of Service Design Thinking and Design Research, that use design as a versatile design vector and reservoir of suggestions, thus allowing cross-fertilization of diverse design practices. It is a person-centered (human centered) and ecosystem awareness approach.
In this cross-cutting, human-centered view, the DRLab works by reformulating problems, developing appropriate conceptual models and defining the specific level of complexity of different designs, through developing a perception of the processual nature of each design and organizing the necessary skills to manage them.
The disciplinary perspective of the DRLab is also original and innovative. Placed in the Department of Humanities at the University of Trento, the Lab draws not only on service design skills and tools, but also on a set of tools from complexity theory and biosemiotics, which ensure that design in the field is best understood in terms of the meanings of design. The first and most obvious result of this approach, is a clear vision on the part of DRLab of the implications of today's shift from theproduct economy to service economy has for companies and organizations.

Design skills and competencies are now in demand in the day-to-day occupations of an increasing proportion of private and public practitioners; it seems clear that it is design that is ensuring the leadership of entities and institutions, both private and public, in increasingly complex and competitive environments.
Many studies and researches show that those geographic areas that European Union statistics rank high on the list of more advanced and innovative territories. These territories have been able to use the skills of designers more and better than others to foster growth in individual sectors, but they have also employed their cross-cutting skills, to gain and maintain leadership in new fields such as knowledge transfer, public policy design, education policies, digitization and its sustainability for citizens and users.