Recent developments in computer supported cooperative work in design: From group collaboration through global connectivity to informing apobetics Imre Horváth Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering Delft University of Technology Delft, the Netherlands i.horvath@tudelft.nl Abstract — This paper surveys the recent developments and future research opportunities in computer supported cooperative work in design. This domain of interest has been variously conceptualized and described in different publications. There is a broader interpretation that considers the entirety of product lifecycle as a target domain and aims at a holistic optimization of all related engineering processes by connecting them through design. There exists a narrower interpretation that concentrates on the enhancement of the product conceptualization and creative design activities in distributed, multidisciplinary and volatile environments. The former is most frequently referred to as collaborative engineering and the latter as collaborative design. The paper concentrates on collaborative design and investigates the concepts, advancements and issues from: (i) philosophical and theoretical, (ii) technological and infrastructural, (iii) organizational and methodological, (iv) social and cultural, (v) cognitive and behavioral perspectives. Based on literature sources and the own work of the author in the last three decades, it provides a broadly-based analysis of the related concepts, knowledge, means, systems and concerns in current research, development and application with the objective to point towards future progression opportunities. The paper identifies a gradual shift in the research interest from the technological and procedural aspects to the socio-cultural, inter-personal and informational aspects. It proposes that collaborative design is eventually about people and that mobile, ubiquitous and smart technologies create many new opportunities for conducting collaborative design. Semantics, pragmatics and apobetics of inter-personal interaction and communication play a key role in the success of collaborative design. Keywords - Collaborative design, distributed resources, virtual design environments, shared product models, group creativity, shared understanding, apobetics. I. INTRODUCTION TO THE PHENOMENON OF COLLABORATION In its most commonsensical meaning, collaboration is a recursive process where a number of people or organizations work together to realize certain shared objectives [1]. Collaboration also means a collective determination of the goals, working out a strategy and a pragmatic methodology of achieving the goals, sharing physical, intellectual and intangible resources, and building common grounds and consensus [2]. There are many drivers, as well as obstacles, of striving after collaborative work. Many of the drivers originate in the current megatrends, which are either social or technological. The most important social megatrends are the irremeably progressing globalization, the imperatives of sustainability, the relative lack of natural resources, the endeavor of well-being, the escalating unbalances all around the world, and the conception of the knowledge economy [3]. Influential technological megatrends are computer-based digitalization, networks-based connectivity, move towards complex cyber-physical systems, advent of adaptive service provisioning systems, proliferation of artificial intelligence, and nano-scale technologies. As far as obstacles are concerned, the lack of attitude and cognizance, the deficiency of enabling competencies and resources, the insufficiency of knowledge, and the culture of coping alone can be mentioned as the most significant ones. Sometimes it is in itself a challenge to find out how to get around these obstacles. In this paper the generic issue of collaboration is addressed in the perspective and context of engineering of goods and services [4]. In this field, all effects of the above-mentioned social and technological megatrends are strongly reflected. Under these effects engineering has started to abandon its traditional platform and objectives, and to work towards new complex solutions, to explore novel forms of well-being enablers, to work out new ways of production and consumption of goods and services (i.e., producing to live better with less), and to guarantee a growing well-being for people even in absence of an expanding economy. Concerning the engineering industry, there has been an explicit need for cooperation over geographic boundaries, economic systems, cultural regions, and consumption profiles. This came partly from economic necessity, partly from business rationality. The major issue has been interoperability, which has political, economic, technological, cultural and personal aspects. Within engineering, design has a crucial position due to its role in converting social demands into engineering objectives, blending knowledge from multiple sources, matching the societal demands with the affordances of technologies and