The Modern Design and Culture Research Center was authorized to be Sichuan Provincial Key Research Base of Philosophy and Social Sciences in 2013. Relying on the multi-disciplinary advantages of rail transit vehicle manufacturing, industrial product design, traditional cultures, art aesthetics and media culture research of SWJTU, the Center strives to promote the interaction between Chinese modern product design and creative industry, accelerate the inspiration and support of traditional cultural resources to modern design, and advance the economic and industrial upgrading and social development from "made in China" to "created in China". The Center has funded 95 projects in the past three years, and the research results cover the three stable research fields, namely, "rail transit vehicle and modern product design", "contemporary aesthetics and design culture" and "the inheritance of southwest ethnic folk cultures and creative industry research". A total of more than 200 achievements including articles, patents, research reports and image materials have been obtained.

The Institute of Man-Machine-Environment System Design Research is set up under the Center for the research in the field of rail transit vehicle and modern product design. The industrial design of the intelligent train on the Beijing-Zhangjiakou High-speed Railway completed by the Center on the basis of the "Fuxing" EMU is an important traffic guarantee for "Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games". In addition, it has also completed a number of design cases with outstanding achievements, such as the vehicle industrial design of Beijing Daxing International Airport Express and the train appearance design of Shanghai Metro Line 17, which were specially reported by People's Daily. The Center has also undertaken the research project: "Creative Design +" Research on the Path to Promote the Upgrading of Industrial Design Products in Sichuan, which was funded by the research field of contemporary aesthetics and design culture. As a result, the article, A Study on Team-based Learning Based on WeChat Public Platform: The Case of Design and Implementation of Mass Media Management Course has been included in SSCI journal. The research result in the field of the inheritance of southwest ethnic folk cultures and creative industry: A Study on the Firing Technology and Cultural Connotations of Yingjing Black Earthenware has been published in core journals such as Zhuangshi (listed in CSSCI) and Journal of Machine Design (listed in CSCD). In addition, the Center has funded a series of interdisciplinary and cross-industrial research projects such as The Intelligent Product Design of Rail Transit Driven by Intelligent Mobility Demand, and A Study on Experiential Knowledge of Gesture Interaction Based on Natural Context.