LDoc Creative Economy Engagement Fellowships (6)
Lead Research Organisation:
Royal College of Art
Department Name: Research Office
Abstract
The project will support fellowships that aim to support:
- some of the UK's most talented researchers and nurture future leaders
- the broader skills development of high-calibre recent doctoral graduates in the art and humanities, particularly in relation to working with partners to support the wider impact of research.
- projects broadly aligned with the core themes, challenges and opportunities that are highlighted in the Industrial Strategy Green paper
- research which is cross-disciplinary and innovation-orientated"
- the best international talent
- some of the UK's most talented researchers and nurture future leaders
- the broader skills development of high-calibre recent doctoral graduates in the art and humanities, particularly in relation to working with partners to support the wider impact of research.
- projects broadly aligned with the core themes, challenges and opportunities that are highlighted in the Industrial Strategy Green paper
- research which is cross-disciplinary and innovation-orientated"
- the best international talent
Planned Impact
see Case for Support
Organisations
Publications
Flory M
(2019)
Future Directions: Design Meets Neuroscience
in Design Management Review
Gheerawo R
(2021)
Creative Leadership: Design Meets Neuroscience to Transform Leadership
in Design Management Journal
Gooding J
(2021)
What Can a Body Do? How We Meet the Built WorldAccessible America: A History of Disability and DesignMaking Disability Modern: Design Histories
in Journal of Design History
Gooding J
(2019)
Teeth. Wellcome Collection, London, 17 May - 16 September 2018
in Design for Health
Gooding J
(2023)
Rather unspectacular: design choices in National Health Service glasses
in Science Museum Group Journal
Lockton D
(2020)
Thinking With Things: Landscapes, Connections, and Performances as Modes of Building Shared Understanding.
in IEEE computer graphics and applications
Real M
(2020)
Exploring Local Business Model Development for Regional Circular Textile Transition in France
in Fashion Practice
Rex B
(2019)
Public museums in a time of crisis: The case of museum asset transfer
in Journal of Community Archaeology & Heritage
| Description | The London Doctoral Training Centre (LDoc) is a specialist doctoral training centre that focuses on Design research for innovation in business, social and community contexts. A collaboration between three of the UK's leading Design research universities: Kingston University, the University of the Arts London and the Royal College of Art, LDoc works with a range of partner organisations, including Sense (the national deafblind charity), TfL and The Design Museum developing practical, real-world projects led by doctoral students. Together these demonstrate different ways in which Design acts as a driver of innovation and creativity in business, in societal and community contexts, and in policymaking. The LDoc Creative Economy Fellowship projects exemplify how Design is inherently inter-disciplinary and industry focused, creating potent bridges across Design and the STEM disciplines. In this way, the fellowships have enabled research-led impact across the creative economy, and there is emerging impact across a range of industrial sectors, from healthcare and biotechnology to machine and computer science. The LDoc partnership champions the need to equip early career researchers with skills that can enhance the economic and societal impact of creative economies within a changing landscape. The six Creative Economy Fellowships that were awarded to Early Career Researchers extended the existing networked community across the three institutions, with fellows located at each institution. The research projects include: textile production innovation, creative leadership, design for health interactions, machine learning, and business model innovation in the cultural sectors. Whilst all of the projects covered discipline-specific themes and approaches, it is important to note that one of the key themes that emerges from each of them is their role in developing and expanding interdisciplinary dialogue and, through this, shared platforms for understanding. It is interesting to note that the one of the key aspects to many design practices is that of working with clients and briefs to fully understand the drivers and potential within the project at hand. These Early Career Fellowships have allowed the fellows to bring together industry and academy partners in different ways to develop new ways for working together. John Fass developed a series of workshops in collaboration with IBM, which enabled data scientists and UX designers to more fully explore the capabilities of machine learning. Whilst he was only able to deliver two workshops in the timeframe of the fellowship, he has been able to secure sufficient interest within IBM to be invited to develop further session for the team in London and the IBM New York team have invited him to lead workshops with them. The benefits to IBM are that they are developing a set of design tools that enable them to innovate with new technologies through a human-centred set of approaches. More broadly, incorporating these principles into their workflows, leads the field in understanding that embedding designers at the product development stages reveals the potency of emerging technologies in new ways. Bethany Rex created an intermediary network of people working in various aspects of the cultural sector, including those with a more business-oriented set of parameters and practitioners. The workshops were valued by participants as they both highlighted and confirmed differences not only in language, but in more fundamental approaches and drivers to their work. The different parties found that Rex's workshops allowed time for them to concentrate on the notion of approaching the cultural sector in terms of 'problems' and 'solutions' as this has inbuilt implications towards specific ways in which policy becomes developed. Whilst the benefits of this project are still nascent, this fellowship has started some important conversations and built some vital networks to enable the parties to be able to be in dialogue in spite of their differing drivers. Ninela Ivanova proposed a project that looked to understand and develop ways for distinguishing Creative Leadership from leadership more generally, in order that its specific approaches can be more clearly defined and its potential fully realized. Ivanova undertook a formalization of the definitions and theoretical underpinnings that have resulted in the concept of Creative Leadership, including a measurement took and a latent needs grid for delivering training across different sectors. The design interventions that she has based these outputs on has been particularly successful and she has disseminated this through two internal reports and a short film. This Fellowship resulted in the formulation of a joint research grant application, which brings Design (HHCD) and Neuroscience (MindRheo) together to create a blueprint for Creative Leadership. The proposal has been submitted to a large technology company, who have an interest in commercialising Creative Leadership internally for their organisation and staff, and externally to their clients. While the application is being considered, this post-doctoral Fellowship has been extended through follow-on funding from The Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design. Jo Gooding embarked upon this fellowship to create connections between design for healthcare, medical sociology and prosthetic developers. This project investigates the next stages towards the adoption of a co-designed research project which had previously explored material choice in prosthetic hands. Hands of X involved prosthesis-wearers as participants and engaged with professionals and the industry. It used methods common in art schools yet unusual in hospitals: co-creation, experience prototyping and service design. Most innovations in prosthetics tend to be medically-framed or technology-driven; offering two extremes, anatomical realism or bionic cyborg hands. Hands of X offers simple and understated prosthetic hands; wearers were supported to curate a variation on a standard design and this meaningful choice afforded a sense of ownership: of having created their hand. The NHS is seeking to innovate, and a commissioning review is exploring how complex rehabilitation, disability services and products are provided. This project set out to investigate the potential for the implementation of the Hands of X model in the real world. Reports from academia and healthcare charities document the challenges introducing new ideas, products and service delivery in the healthcare sector. Gooding sought to understand the various barriers and enablers in the spread of an innovative model for the experience of choosing prosthetics within the limb-fitting and rehabilitation services offered to prosthesis-wearers in the NHS. The three key benefits that have arisen from this project funding have been: the development of a collaborative network of those who have an interest in exploring creative solutions for a disability-led co-design service for prosthesis-wearers; an award from an academic specialist interest group (Medical Sociology) that sits outside the creative sector - giving recognition of the social value of a creative research project; securing a large grant for the project stakeholder to continue exploring design-led healthcare at The Healthcare Improvement Studies Institute. These outputs demonstrate the urgency of this work and its impact upon the industry and academic disciplines that surround it. This project was fundamental in supporting funding for an associated research project, and Gooding is actively seeking funding to enable further collaborations. Helen Paine's project highlights the role of design in enabling wider contributions to ongoing projects with the Mistra Future Fashion project. Funding enabled LDoc researcher to participate in and contribute towards events/deliverables required by the project. These include: networking with industry and academic stakeholders has enabled a broader reach of the of the research agenda and themes being investigated within the Centre for Circular Design; broadening of networks at Centre for Circular Design has developed a number of potential partnerships for future collaboration (NIRI, Nonwovens Network, Doppelhaus, Piñatex, Texon etc.); communication of research within industry and academic networks which has promoted conversations around circularity. These outputs demonstrate the broad reach that design-led approaches can enable and thus which can assist in influencing a wider cultural shift. These were very short fellowships, which necessarily means that their reach and impact are not as extensive as a longer, more sustained research project. However, it is notable that all six of the projects has worked directly with industry partners and enabled clearer understanding of many of the terms and processes by which each of the partners in dialogue approaches the given context from. These early career researchers have used their research, diagnostic and design-led skills to unpack these differences and enable clearer understandings to emerge. These are vital skills when traversing disciplines and industries that approach design from differing societal and economic standpoints. All of the projects has been positively received and two have already secured follow-on funding; this is a testimony to the importance of this type of opportunity at this stage of researchers' careers as it allows time and space to focus upon the nature of what it might mean to function as a researcher within their given field. Working directly with industry partners is something that can be more problematic at doctoral level where the focus is more clearly upon academic criteria. This is where this funding has allowed for these researchers to emerge from that context and embed their thinking and research into a broader set of strategic aims. All six projects demonstrate potential across public, private and third sector contexts, findings which are being disseminated at this early stage through the conventional academic routes, but also in the form of developing workshops and dialogues across the relevant industry partners. Short fellowships of this nature are challenging as it takes time to become embedded within the context of the particular department and to make networks and links with the other partners involved. It is notable that the most successful projects here built upon existing networks either formed by the fellow themselves or by institutional colleagues. However, the reportage evident in the fellows' individual reports demonstrates that these were not necessarily the most impactful and that all of the projects found routes to communicate their findings. |
| Exploitation Route | These were relatively short fellowships for Early Career Researchers. Several of the projects have received follow-on funding, which will offer more scope for these findings to be taken forward; others are in ongoing networking and dialogues with partners to embed their findings within more industry-focused settings. |
| Sectors | Communities and Social Services/Policy,Creative Economy,Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Education,Electronics,Healthcare,Leisure Activities, including Sports, Recreation and Tourism,Manufacturing, including Industrial Biotechology,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections,Retail |
| Description | London Doctoral Design Consortium CEE Fellowships Economic & Societal Impact The six post-doctoral engagement fellowships were awarded across the three institutions of the LDoc CDT and ran from January 2018 to January 2019. They were awarded to recent doctoral graduates whose research specifically focused upon industry-focused design within an interdisciplinary framework. This was aimed at offering scope for early career researchers to develop their doctoral research between the academy and industry. The projects supported included: textile production innovation, creative leadership, design for health interactions, machine learning and business model innovation in the cultural sectors. These fellowships have now been completed and we are beginning to be able to see some areas of impact. The careers of all of the Fellows have been significantly enhanced through this funding and they all continue to pursue research-driven trajectories. Impact can be measured most directly by focusing on their ongoing career-development and the outputs highlighted in the other sections of this reporting. Ninela Ivanova: Ivanova has been appointed Innovation Fellow, Inclusive Design for Business Impact at the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design where she is looking at how methods, tools and processes of Inclusive Design, Design Thinking and Creative Leadership can directly impact and transform business and industry. Her research is demonstrating ways in which these approaches can grow the evidence-base and delivery of home-grown Creative Leadership., bringing together design and neuroscience to further knowledge and practical applications. This work is impacting personal and organisational transformation across a range of industry settings, through an holistic focus with technological, environmental and personal needs and aspirations. Her fellowship and ongoing research have continued within the Helen Hamlyn Centre where she undertook her Post-Doctoral Fellowship. Project partners include Tata Consultancy Services Panasonic, WS, Google and other partners. Ivanova has published outputs over this past year since her fellowship ended and the response for these indicates that this is an area of emerging impact that builds upon the Centre's international reputation. Jo Gooding: Gooding is the founder and director of Design Research Associates. She set up the company following her LDoc post-Doctoral fellowship. The research continues the work undertaken for the Hands of X Project, focusing increasingly upon the territory for design research between academia, healthcare, business and third-sector organisations. She is developing a service to support inclusion design innovation model to support emerging innovators overcome barriers to industry and deliver reals-world impact. She works closely with a range of industry partners, academics and NHS professionals. John Fass: Following his fellowship with IBM, Fass continues to develop his career as an interaction designer covering diverse fields such as healthcare, engineering and music, consistently with a narrative of legibility. A guiding principle is the ethical and moral responsibilities of designers of digital technologies and careful consideration of how they intersect with human behaviour. He is currently a design consultant for two major global and national web application projects, each with up to 60,000 users. Fass's research interests build upon his fellowship with RCA/IBM, particularly concerning the nature of digital experiences and how they may be externalised in physical forms, urban rights and open technologies, interface ethics, and data activism. He has presented research at conferences internationally including: CHI, NordiCHI, DIS, INCITI Recife, and sits on the Program Committee for Research Through Design. As a teacher, Fass has been appointed Course Leader, MA User Experience Design at UAL and lectures at the Royal College of Art on the Information Experience Design MA. Bethany Rex: Rex joined the University of Warwick, in the Centre for Cultural & Media Policy Studies in December 2019 as a Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow, following her Post-Doctoral Fellowship at University of the Arts London. Her key research interest is in how the austerity policies of central government have affected local governments across England, and the (uneven) impact this has had on the provision of cultural services. Her research focuses on the growth of different delivery models (trusts and community-led asset transfers, for example) and approaches to income generation as well as museum closures. In addition to understanding the cause/s of these changes, she is interested in the ways that prevailing ideas (especially dominant professional discourses and historical ideas) have shaped contemporary debate about the impact of austerity on publicly subsidised museums as well as how these changes are interpreted and experienced by cultural practitioners. These research interests impact into cultural policies at local, national and transnational government level and the relationship between rhetorical shifts and 'actual' changes to resource allocation and decision making and the shifting parameters of public/private and commercial/non-commercial interests in the cultural sector She has published in a range of contexts aligned with these interests and has demonstrated impact upon the practices of decision-making about cultural spending in local authorities and the role of standards in shaping the negotiation of professional identity in museums. Helen Paine: Paine continues her research, now established within the Business of Fashion, Textiles and Technology (BFFT) Project, based at the University of the Art's Centre for Circular Fashion Her research is developing impact within the field of future textiles manufacturing and material innovation using multi-disciplinary STEAM as an approach. This involves taking craft knowledge and values together with industrial needs and approaches to demonstrate what they can collectively achieve in terms of sustainability in use. She works across the fashion technology industry and academia, with publications in relation to policy, process and concepts of sustainability and material innovation. Paine's work with the Centre has been to share in working closely with industry partners in developing industry-wide principles, something that is rapidly gaining traction. Marion Real Real is a systemic design researcher researching social representation and the transformations that occur during transitions toward circular economies and cosmopolitan localism. Following her Fellowship, she is now working on the SISCODE project at Fab Lab Barcelona to support RRI and co-design approaches in different fablabs, living labs and cultural places. She has forged links with Fabcity, local urban agriculture projects and visualisations tools. Real continues to maintain strong collaborations with ESTIA in the South-West of France and EU projects like the RETRACE project. She is part of the Chaire BALI project dedicated to emphasise disruptive material and processes for circular fashion. Current impactful projects include facilitating the incubation program Remix El Barrio who aimed at exploring the potential of food waste to be used for craft and new material production. (circular concept proofs with eggshells, orange peels, coffee/tea waste, avocat and olive pits...) |
| Sector | Creative Economy,Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Healthcare |
| Impact Types | Societal,Economic |
| Description | (2020) 'Fungi for Material Futures', Tashkeel Live Lecture. Dubai,16 November 2020 (online) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Interdisciplinary designer and innovator, Dr Ninela Ivanova's investigation into novel bio-based materials began in 2010 during her MA Fashion at Kingston School of Art, where she was able to translate her fascination with the Fungi Kingdom into designs and textures, as well as experimenting with the idea of 'living' garments. Through multiple collaborations and meeting like-minded artists, designers and scientists, she was able to realise her vision for novel mycelium-based materials, designs and products. The first line of mycelium + Timber products - a collaboration with furniture design studio Sebastian Cox Ltd. - was showcased during London Design Festival 2017, and was recently featured in 'Mushrooms: The Art, Design and Future of Fungi' at Somerset House, London. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://tashkeel.org/workshops/lecture-fungi-for-material-futures |
| Description | Association of Cultural Economics |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | 'Theory of Change to Analyse Cultural Policy: A New Theoretical Framework?'. RMIT University, Melbourne |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | DOGA |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | June 2018 - Innovation for All 2018, Oslo DOGA (Design & Architecture, Norway) |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Digital tools that support students to reflect on their design competency growth paths |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | This paper reports on the design and testing of two digital learning systems. The first, STUDIO, supports individual and collective reflection on the design process. It allows design students who have completed a work placement in industry to capture the skills they have acquired and to share their progress. The tool is intended to be used post facto, that is retrospectively, to aid development and inform future design work. The second system, Trajectories, supports student journeys through a course of study. It is intended to be used live. As students proceed through their studies, acquire new skills, and deepen their existing knowledge they assess their own level of mastery of a specific competency on a continuous basis by connecting it to specific design outcomes. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://cumulusroma2020.org/ |
| Description | Executive Education |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | 2 two day Executive Education Events - led workshops for Newton Business School, University of Shanghai for business executives on the theme of Creative Leadership (June 2018 and December 2018) |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Panellist for #FrameLive: Orgatec x Frame Design Challenge on workplace solutions, 18 June 2020 (online) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | An important step in redefining the future of office design occurred at last week's Frame Awards, where our Agile Workplace 2.0 challenge, conducted in partnership with Orgatec, announced its three finalists. The Challenge On the first day a field of ten shortlisted entries were presented to a jury consisting of Orgatec director Thomas Postert, IMM Cologne head of interior design Dick Spierenburg, Ippolito Fleitz Group head of product design Tilla Goldberg, Kinzo founder Karim El-Ishmawi and Moving Walls CEO Patrick Frick. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://www.frameweb.com/?modus=tag&filters=W3sidHlwZSI6InRhZyIsInZhbHVlIjoiQXdhcmRzIiwiY2F0ZWdvcnki... |
| Description | UAL Research Fortnight |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | 'Exploring "New Business Models" in EU Cultural Policy', UAL Research Fortnight. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | V&A Contribution |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Text contribution, 'Pulp-It' as part of Future of Fashion Exhibtion (April 2018-June 2019) |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |