Beyond Practice-Based Design

The call for papers raised a few important questions about the state of the PhD in design. I have worked in a few PhD programmes over the years, supervised well over a dozen students to completion and examined another 35 theses in perhaps seven countries. I have also run at least two programmes and have been on steering groups of, by now, three national and one European programmes. As the editors noted in their call, a PhD has become an entry criterion for academic teaching positions in design. The process has taken less than 20 years and is ongoing. It has had its hiccoughs, but the shift from a practice-based to a research-led occupation has been much faster than I expected 20 years ago. We are in good company with business and engineering schools – just 20 years behind.