DESIGN SCHOOL: The Future of the Project

This project will establish an international research network exploring the future of the Design School, through a partnership between Northumbria University School of Design, Charles Stuart University, Australia, the University of Southern Denmark, and the Design Museum London. By examining the contemporary situation of the Design School from a global perspective, the research network will explore how the structure of design learning and teaching, research and practice, is being transformed by a number of internal, external, and contextual factors and the implications of these changes for future iterations of the Design School. The network will explore the nature of the contemporary Design School and examine the rich and diverse situations that exist in design production, both in theory and practice, and the character of the studio/history/theory interplays that prevail in contemporary Design School life, asking whether Design Schools are shaping a new type of designer, or if tomorrow's designers will emerge from other professions such as business, health care, education, and computing, where design 'thinking' is now regularly applied.

This research network is proposed at a time when governments and markets across the world are actively reshaping the university and hence the Design School. In a time of rapid and intensive change, the network will foster new international relationships to shape the Design School of the future. The key aim of the proposed research network seminar series is to explore the future of the contemporary Design School informed by international perspectives from high level invited speakers from design education, culture and industry by asking:

* How can a Design School in the age of the Anthropocene best prepare future designers for this complex world?
* How can the Design School maximize the potential opportunities suggested by this future, uncertain world at a time of rapid and intensive change?
* Having changed the planet how should the Design School react to the planet changing us?

The research network will hold 3 symposiums reflecting 3 significant turns in the contemporary Design School. The first will focus on the current issues surrounding the Design School including the development of countless private Design Schools, increased distance learning, and national policies surrounding design education pursued by government across the world. The second symposium will focus on the increasingly close relationship between the Design School and the Cultural Sector. The third symposium will examine the increasingly intensive relationship between industry and Design Schools that will stimulate debate over future Design School policy and private companies' agendas. The collaboration between the research team in this international network will permit the network to bring together representatives from the expanding landscape of the Design School, which includes growing numbers of public and private educational providers franchising internationally, the design museum sector (also franchising internationally), representatives from the booming international design festival circuit, representatives from the emergent, mostly transdisciplinary postgraduate Design Schools, representatives from the editors of the mostly online design media, and influential practitioners engaged in design education. Since many of these influences are external to the discipline's traditional Design School model, but are shaping the learning of the designer, the 3 symposiums will generate the first advanced understanding of the probable trajectory of the Design School. The value of this research is in its rigorous examination of the future of the Design School. The audience for the 3 events will be international and comprise faculty heads and deans, museum directors, design educators, key design practitioners, festival directors and curators, publishers, members of the design media, and postgraduate students of design.

Key beneficiaries of this research will be researchers, educators, practitioners, and policy makers within the design community and elsewhere including those in academia, industry, public and government bodies. The research planned will examine how the structure of design learning and teaching, research and practice, is being transformed by a number of internal, external, and contextual factors and the implications of these changes for future iterations of the Design School. Both individuals and groups within the design community and elsewhere will benefit from this research. A rich, international network of researchers, educators and practitioners involved in the expanding landscape of the contemporary Design School will be established to explore the important issues. The research will impact design education providers (e.g. Universities, Colleges, Research Organisations, Museums, and Schools), design policy makers (e.g. regional and national governments and bodies - Design Council, Design Research Society, RSA, etc.), the booming cultural sector including representatives from the design museum sector, the international design festival circuit, editors from the largely online design media, and practitioners by examining the importance of the modern day Design School to a nation's overall GDP and subsequent health and wellbeing of its people. Moreover, this research will explore cross-national and cross-cultural concepts and attitudes towards the Design School.
The main strategy for addressing impact in this research network is through a combination of systematic but imaginative work, which combines creative practice-based research with sound empirically based research. In this sense, impact is primarily addressed through the quality of the research proposed and by the high calibre of the proposed international research network participants. The impact of this research will be managed and disseminated via a range of both national and international channels. The channels include regional networks for design companies, network participants, subsequent continuing professional development (CPD) workshops, and symposium events that will be open to the general public. Other channels will include public bodies and agencies, including those represented by the invited network participants who will provide an effective context for the dissemination of the research findings, as well as established and relevant conferences, journals and trade magazines. International channels will include the research project website, the Design Museum's archives, international journals and conferences, and other established research and industrial collaborations of the main investigators. The project's impact will start immediately once funding has been secured. At this stage the dedicated project website will be built and the Design Museum archive launched. Information on the proposed symposiums will be disseminated to the invited network participants for them to distribute, in turn, to an even wider international audience. More long-term impact will be managed via the development of an exploitation plan throughout the proposed research, exploring opportunities with each of the Investigators' Commercialisation Departments. The investigators and their host universities have a strong reputation in design research. Moreover, the institutions are excellent providers of dedicated training, CDP activities, and in capacity building support for commercial, public and third sector design organisations. The potential impact of the proposed research thus extends well beyond commercial contexts to include social, cultural and quality of life contexts. In summary, the range of exploitation channels is very broad, ranging from academia through to SMEs to multinational product and cultural and service organisations. Outputs are planned in a range of formats that allow us to match dissemination methods to potential beneficiaries.