15th International Conference of the European Academy of Design

In the 25 years since its first international conference on doctoral education, the discipline of design research has developed into a maturing but still emerging discipline. EAD has taken this milestone as inspiration to focus on Doctoral Education in Design and the next 25 years.  EAD 2023 reflects how we lead with imagination and inclusivity in our practices, policies, methods, systems, and values. The intention is to expose how agencies, communities, organizations, institutions, and societies adapt, develop, collaborate, and grow.

We invite papers exploring doctoral education in five themes hosted by five higher education institutions:

1. Living in the Pluriverse (Brazil)

2. Exploring the Social Impact of Design Research (Finland)

3. Beyond Human-Centred Design Research (India)

4. The Discipline of Design – transdisciplinary practices (Spain)

5. Extreme Making (Scotland, UK)

We want to hear about the following:

• current doctoral research – projects, policies, training, and-or supervisory practices

• design research – how it is influencing the design sector and other industries it serves

• why is change needed, and how might we evolve the cadence?

• what has been achieved by design research in the past 25 years, and what needs to change

• evidence-based design – why it is needed and the impacts it has to date

• the career trajectory of a successful Ph.D. candidate and how learning is being applied (inside and outside of higher education)

The scale and nature of problems that designers deal with today are often larger and more complex than in previous eras. We only need to look at the nature of conference papers from prior EAD conferences to see that most submissions and work were sole-authored a decade ago. Today, it is a commonplace to have multiple-authored work and to have people from different subjects writing research. With this change, we have purposefully reached out to connect in different ways with colleagues across the globe to design and deliver EAD 2023. We know that continents, countries, and higher education institutions are progressing in different ways and at different rates around doctoral education in design. And that culture, values, and political environment influence their progress too. Part of our quest for EAD2023 is inviting you to help re-design our biennial conference and reconsider how knowledge should be exchanged worldwide.

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