As one of the important academic activities during Beijing International Design Week, Design Marathon is a large-scale design competition workshop jointly organized by Beijing Institute of Fashion and many universities at home and abroad. The ICCSD was invited to be the steering unit of the 2021 Design Marathon, participating in the final judging, awarding and dissemination of the event.

The theme of the 2021 Design Marathon is "Design for Sustainable Well-being", which means sustainable well-being that contributes to the well-being of individuals, communities or the world without destroying that of others, the environment or future generations. This year's workshop brought together 76 universities from 11 countries, with 300 registered participants, 45 mentors, and 25 guest judges, and produced 25 commercially viable design solutions. In addition, the online forum before the start of the workshop also attracted much attention, inviting 12 well-known domestic and international experts to share their topics, creating a total of 30,000 views and great social influence.

Since the Design Marathon was launched in 2016, a total of more than 7,400 participants have registered, more than 220 invited experts have been invited, more than 340 institutions have been covered, 12 countries and regions have been involved, and more than 100 workshop outputs have been produced.