Europe has historical global leadership in design education at Cycles 1 and 2 and, over the last 25 years, has pioneered doctoral education at Cycle 3. Despite major progress in the delivery of transparency in the learning, teaching and assessment of Cycles 1 and 2 for design education through the European Credit transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS), this has had limited impact on Cycle 3 as identified in 2019 by the European Universities Association who comment that “Eurodoc, the European Council of Doctoral Candidates and Junior Researchers, often receives questions like: What are the main differences in doctoral training in Europe? How is doctoral training organised in different countries in Europe? What are the conditions offered to doctoral candidates?” (https://eua-cde.org/the-doctoral-debate/128:how-doctorates-vary-across-europe,-from-the-perspective-of-doctoral-candidates.html). This lack of transparency may be considered as one of the barriers to limited internationalisation as identified by Hasgall, Saenen, & Borrell-Damian (2019) who state that, “As Eurostat data show, there is significant inequality in Europe when it comes to the number of doctoral candidates from abroad. Given the global character of research, institutions must deal with the question how to make their doctoral candidates population more diverse”. Parkes (2005) sums up the general positon on doctoral education by commenting that: "This area, traditionally viewed as a secret garden or an activity that takes place behind closed doors between consenting adults, is now expected to be more transparent, more consistent and more appropriate...." (p195) Vast amounts of unordered, unconnected and often inaccessible material relating to the learning, teaching and assessment processes of the Cycle 3 design doctorate plus its tangible outputs/outcomes reside in academic institutions throughout the 33 Erasmus+ member countries. Through leadership and a considered methodology, the potential exists to engage with these institutions to translate the current fragmented landscape into an ordered, accessible and searchable knowledge framework that will provide transparency, recognition of skills/qualifications and promote internationalisation. The aim of this project is to exploit the existing but largely inaccessible breadth and depth of knowledge relating to the design doctorate in Erasmus+ member countries and translate this into an Open Educational Resource (OER). One company and four higher education (HE) Participating Organisations have devised a methodology to address the aim of the project. The HE Participating Organisations have been recruited on the basis of international reputation in the field of doctoral education in design and geographic location. By being based in northern, southern, eastern and western Europe, the HE Participating Organisations (Aalto University, La Sapienza Universita di Roma, Middle East Technical University, Loughborough University) will use their reputation, proximity and cultural awareness to work with a regionally allocated number of institutions in the identification and collation of key content on the nature of the design doctorate in Erasmus+ member countries for incorporation into an OER. As a leading developer of digital and video resources to support teaching and learning, ATiT BVBA will direct, support and deliver the translation of content into the OER. Quality assurance will be integrated throughout the project through a process of evaluaton by an International Expert Advisory Panel (14 Council Members of the Design Research Society) and International Doctoral Student Stakeholders (4 based at each HE Participating Organisation - total 16). Supported by social media, conference presentations and contacts in all institutions that offer design doctorates in Erasmus+ member countries that have been identified during the project, the OER will be launched to an anticipated audience of approximately 10000 (and possibly more) via a webinar that will then be edited and made available on the OER/YouTube to support further dissemination/impact. Access to information embodied in the OER will have a posotove impact on: • Potential doctoral students • Existing doctoral students • Potential doctoral supervisors • Existing doctoral supervisors • Academic faculties/schools/departments • Doctoral colleges • Research funders/government agencies • Companies seeking to fund doctoral activity/employ specialist graduates/commission research • Stakeholders in other disciplinary fields seeking to address similar Horizontal and Additional Priorities The methodology and outcomes will be captured in an academic journal paper that will support dissemination to stakeholders plus those in other disciplinary fields (e.g. engineering, geography, modern languages) seeking to address similar aims for doctoral study to provide wider dissemination. A second paper will report impact 12 months after completion of the project.
The project was driven by the aim of exploiting the existing but largely inaccessible breadth and depth of knowledge relating to the design doctorate in Erasmus+ member countries by identifying scope, approaches, outcomes and excellence to provide transparency, recognition of skills/qualifications, promote internationalisation and inspire future economic, social and cultural innovation through scholarly activity. The seven objectives were devised to meet this aim and sought to achieve the following: Objective 1. “Identify and collate details on institutions/colleges/faculties/schools/departments that deliver doctorates in design for the 33 Erasmus+ member countries”. This objective was a necessary scoping exercise to establish where doctoral activity was taking place and provide essential information for subsequent objectives. A total of 173 institutions were identified. Objective 2. “Identify and collate core/essential information on doctoral provision for all 33 Erasmus+ member countries using a broad range of media such as text, image, table, video, URL”. With no structured and accessible information on the structures of doctoral study, this objective identified what was both what was needed by stakeholders and what was viable to include in the OER. Fifteen searchable characteristics were identified. Objective 3. “Generate criteria by which to identify excellence in the design doctorate and collate Excellence Case Studies from a broad geographical footprint of Erasmus+ member countries that recognise European cultural diversity in practice”. To expand on the content and structure of doctorates in design, this objective explored outputs and outcomes that demonstrated best practice in terms of impact and examples of the often poorly understood methodological approach of Research through Design. Having provided information on where and how doctoral activity took place, in addition to case studies of practical applications the Excellence Case Studies. Criteria of reach and impact were identified and 34 case studies collated as PDF downloads. Objective 4. “Produce Excellence Case Study videos that capture the nature of the doctorate, outputs/outcomes, study environment, informal learning through interviews in which key stakeholders (e.g. former student, supervisors, research director, dean) discuss factors that made it a success”. Whilst useful, the presentation of what might be called hard data can fail to capture what might be call the human factor. In addition to PDF downloads of case studies that included extensive visual material as images, video interviews with researchers who discussed issues such as motivation to undertake a doctorate in design, why they chose a specific institution and advice for future candidates. A total of 15 reflective video interviews were produced. Objective 5. “Undertake an audit of the state of the art in design doctorates in all 33 Erasmus+ member countries to identify all registered students, their institution/college/faculty/school/department with URL, start/end date, research topic and supervisor(s)”. This objective provided a resource that identified the current status of doctoral activity in 2022 and 2023 by identifying titles of doctorates and start dates. A search function enabled activity in specific topics to be listed. A total of 943 titles of doctorates in design were identified. Objective 6. “Translate collated content from Objectives 1 to 5 into an accessible Open Educational Resource (OER) to enable effective/searchable access and dissemination with capacity for the updating of content by stakeholders beyond the end date of the project”. To provide access to stakeholders, outputs from Objectives 1 to 5 were translated into an OER as the main outcome from the project. This relatively sophisticate portal embodies the presentation of data in lists with usability being significantly enhanced through the use of PDF downloads, video and search functions. The D.Doc OER is available at www.d-doc.eu Objective 7. “Disseminate the OER via pre-launch stakeholder engagement, launch webinar, legacy webinar, academic journal/conference papers, conference presentation, PR and social/academic media”. Objective 7 enabled stakeholders to both engage with the project by contributing data (including words/images for case studies); evaluation of collated content/emerging OER; Q&A by invited presentation at a conference (Cumulus Association Design Cultures 2021 Conference, Rome 9 - 11 June, Rome, Italy); PR via the 3000+ member PhD-Design JISCMail forum; and launch webinar (9 August 2023). This was launched to the doctorate in design community through a webinar on 9 August 2023 followed by release of the URL for the OER the following day to over 3000 registered users of the PhD-Design JISCMail forum; and academic journal (paper submitted to AHCI-indexed METU Journal May 2023). The D.Doc OER received overwhelmingly positive feedback before and after the launch and is set to be the ‘go-to, resource for anyone wishing to explore the European doctorate in design.
Design is a relatively new field to academic research, having seen a step-change in activity within Europe with the UK’s1992 Further and Higher Education Act that enabled polytechnics (where design was typically studied) to become universities and award their own degrees. University status came with an expectation to undertake academic research of which PhD study represents a key element of the scholarly environment. As an emerging field, progress has been made throughout Europe in establishing critical mass but specific detail of where activity is taking place (including intensity), its nature and impact of outcomes has not been documented. As experienced doctoral supervisors (the project lead had supervised/examined 39 PhDs), the academic partners for the project had significant first-had experience of the underlying issues and leveraged this in identifying the aim and objectives for the project. The project responded to a clear need to make available the vast amount of existing information on the nature doctoral activity in design within Europe with the ensuing transparency enabling greater recognition of the qualification and promoting wider movement of students through an ability to identify the most appropriate institution to meet their individual needs. Parkes (2005) describes the PhD as “….an activity that takes place behind closed doors between consenting adults….” and, in addition to transparency of process, this project sought to address the need to provide greater understanding of the outputs and outcomes from the doctorate in design to demonstrate impact and inspire future activity.