Few times like ours have been subjected to processes of transformation so profound and accelerated that they encompass economic, political, social and cultural structures alike. These processes, which have come to be interpreted under the concepts of globalization and mundialization, are the cause of a new planetary situation marked by an intense complexity and interdependence. It is a new order of the world that has qualitatively modified the system inherited from the first half of the 20th century, giving rise to a new scenario in which a good number of strategic postulates are questioned, forcing us to carry out an exercise of reflection in order to improve understanding of this new complexity.

In this sense, globalization has become the main focus of all analyzes. The profound reorganization of the world economy has generated fundamental changes both in the political system and in the forms of social organization, without forgetting the tendency towards the homologation of different cultures and conceptions of life, the latter being processes that have been accelerated by the planetarization of communication technologies.

In general terms it can be said that the emergence of the Information Society has allowed for a qualitative modification of learning processes, opening up a new horizon towards which to guide methods and practices within a Smart Planet that has universalized the system of learning and also access to knowledge. It is a radical change in the processes of access, appropriation and use of knowledge, which modify the behaviors of learning as well as the instrumentalization of knowledge. The network society is born as a new utopia, as a model and project towards which the societies of the future tend.

From this perspective, the IED must build its project seeking dialogue with the different contexts that derive from all these changes. We need to situate ourselves in a new Cosmopolitanism vigilant of the forms of cultural miscegenation in its different dimensions and that becomes the reference basis of a future capable of integrating the complexity of societies and cultures. Homi Bhabha talks about In-between Cultures, thus defining the space of social and cultural communication. It is, as Bhabha himself indicates, a fundamental anthropological change brought about by the new systems of communication and social integration.

Finally, the ideology of the IED must be directly related in ethical terms to the complexity of the contemporary world. It is urgent to assume a new responsibility towards the immediate future of our world and humanity, endorsing a moral ideal. It is about building a new critical way of thinking that converts a new utopian project into its own project, one that not only thinks but also constructs what the ethical-political thought defines as what is “Common”, that is, the non-negotiable common good that is the guarantee of an appropriate human history, one with dignity and human rights. It is about considering both the culture of the project as well as the education processes, all from a cosmopolitan and ethical perspective.

Design will thus be one of the most significant instruments when defining new forms of culture. In its own right, its intention is a part of the very culture of the project. The culmination of Design is the moment when all those elements that modernize not only the uses, but also the tastes, the forms of perception and even the system of needs, are decided. Any reflection on Design culminates in a reflection on culture trends and their projects.

Everyone is aware that these reflections acquire greater strength if the context that defines them is one of cultures like ours, subjected to processes of acceleration and profound innovation, whose scope encompasses all the domains of science and life, of production and society. Intervening in these processes is one of the responsibilities of those who undertake the task of building the societies of the future.