In line with a growing trend to link industrial design and business instruction, Rhode Island School of Design has forged a new relationship with Babson College, building on a 14-year relationship with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management.

RISD and MIT offer a business development course together, run on RISD’s side by Professor Matthew Kressy, who has taught the class for eight years. Now, while continuing the MIT relationship, Kressy will be pulling double duty with Babson, too.

For the course, titled “Product Design and Development,” about 15 RISD and 40 Babson students will be split into teams, each with a design objective. Some of those designs will be passed down by corporate sponsors, who provide funding – usually $1,000 per student team and $500 for each team in the new program – and problems to solve.

Because of the corporate sponsorship, the class offers possibilities for students to sell their ideas. Those who develop products that can be patented...split the royalties with whichever college patents it, but “if the students opt to pay for it themselves by hiring a patent attorney, they can get all the royalties,” said Kressy.