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Jack
Ingram
University of Central England
Rachel Cooper
University of Salford
Developing
publishing opportunities
for industrial design research
Design
research, as represented by research publications, has evolved unevenly.
The significant paradigm shifts in its early years, as identified by Archer1,
laid the foundations for a period of comparative stability and orthodoxy
in which growth was modest. In Britain, in the 1970s and 1980s, the Design
Research Society was the central force, through its conferences its journal,
Design Studies. The centre of gravity of this activity was towards engineering
and architecture, subject areas in which funded research was established,
and which were located in established universities.
Other areas of design, such as industrial design, graphic design, etc (professional
activities represented by the Chartered Society of Designers), were taught
in Higher Education Institutions such as polytechnics, establishments with
a vocational bias, in which research was rarely encouraged and hardly ever
funded. Through a number of policy changes instigated by government, these
institutions became universities, and in 1992 the design academics within
them had the opportunity to participate in the Research Assessment Exercise,
through which research publications (and other outputs) were evaluated.
Institutions received research funding according to their rating in that
exercise, stimulating further research outcomes.
The increase in design research activity created a need for academic publishing
opportunities, spread research activity more evenly across the full spectrum
of definitions of design research, and in some areas challenged definitions
of research and of publication.
There emerged a desire to publish amongst many design academics with no
previous experience. One of several new journals born out of these mid-1990s
changes, the Design Journal was created to give encouragement to new authors
whilst mantaining academic conventions. It emerged as an extension of conference
presentation opportunities created by the European Academy of Design, an
informal network of design academics whose inaugural conference was in 1995.
This paper describes the circumstances and the decisions which led to the
foundation of The Design Journal in 1997: it debates some of the issues
which determine the publishing requirements of researchers, and explains
the academic and commercial decisions which determine the nature of this
publication, and the development of an editorial policy.
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