The objective of this article is to analyse the designer skills and company needs that are important for design culture development in the coming era of Industry 5.0. For this purpose, 83 SMEs operating in the manufacturing sector in Italy, Spain, Romania, and Poland were analysed. Qualitative and quantita-tive research conducted within the European project Intride let the authors state that in the 21st century context, companies will need to look for designers with specific skills. Based on their study, the authors indicate the most important skills for further development of design culture from the areas of soft, technological, design, digital, and green skills. Further, the authors suggest that it is necessary to con-tinue research on identifying the most needed skills for smart designers in manufacturing and in rele-vant curricula at universities, which might fill educational gaps related to these skills. They propose the concept of the “smart designer” as a design innovation trigger in the manufacturing sector.

The aim of this article was to describe the definition process of a joint master’s degree program as a proposal for the training of professional smart designers on the skills needed to contribute to the current green and digital transition of the European industry context. Arising from the framework of the INTRIDE European project, this article has been structured starting from an introductory analysis of the demanded skills of designers and the needs of European Union (EU) companies in the current contemporary scenario. As such, the reflection extends to the research methodology established for the development of a state of the art on soft, digital, and green skills as a scientific basis for the definition of a cross and interdisciplinary training course entitled Strategic design for innovation in the manufacturing sector. Thus, focusing on the Bologna Declaration (June 19, 1999) in which the need to build a "European Higher Education Area" has been declared. Based on the achieved research results, the authors propose the INTRIDE Joint Master’s Degree Program (JMDP) as a cross and interdisciplinary training course for smart designers that will become the future innovation triggers for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the EU manufacturing sector. This, together with added competencies related to soft, digital, and green skills – as general ones – and design and technological – as specific ones. At the end of this scientific contribution, a discussion has been reported regarding a general reflection on the developed design process and the lessons learned in the application of the design methodology, combined with the suggestions for a sustainable use and implementation of the proposed training program.