These case studies are one part of a wider range of activities undertaken by the Multi-disciplinary Design Network, which was set up in 2006 to support a key recommendation made by the Cox Review for the establishment of multi-disciplinary ‘centres of excellence’ that combine management, engineering, technology, design and the creative arts.
The Network is supported by HEFCE and NESTA and aims to facilitate the sharing of knowledge and best practice across universities to improve curriculum design and assess the impact of these new programmes.
The Network’s activities involve knowledge sharing events hosted by universities and overseas trips, which are then followed by reports. The final project’s outcome will be a report summarising all key topics from the events, trips and case studies, and will be launched at the closing event in October 2010.
A number of universities across the UK heeded this call to arms, developing courses and research projects where design works alongside and in collaboration with other disciplines. In some cases this led to the formation of new teaching and research centres, while in others the focus has been on creating new postgraduate courses or embedding design within existing ones.
We've interviewed eight of them, each of which has taken a slightly different approach to multi-disciplinary design education. These case studies show that multi-disciplinary design teaching and research in universities can take a number of forms:
- Design London builds on a heritage of cross-institutional collaboration to provide design-led modules for MBA students, designers and engineers, with a focus on business incubation
- C4D shows how a course can run in tandem across two institutions, and how multi-disciplinary workshops can develop research and teaching
- ImaginationLancaster is a creative research lab at Lancaster University, which offers multi-disciplinary MA and MRes design courses and more
- The University of Nottingham Business School is embedding design thinking in entrepreneurship education
- Nottingham Trent's multi-disciplinary Masters programme has developed into a scheme open to students from five NTU schools
- Northumbria University is developing multi-disciplinary curriculum and assessment design
- Kingston University is researching multi-disciplinary teamwork
- University College Falmouth operates a multi-disciplinary research and development laboratory and a creative facilitation space
These case studies are one part of a wider range of activities undertaken by the Multi-disciplinary Design Network, which was set up in 2006 to support a key recommendation made by the Cox Review for the establishment of multi-disciplinary ‘centres of excellence’ that combine management, engineering, technology, design and the creative arts.
The Network is supported by HEFCE and NESTA and aims to facilitate the sharing of knowledge and best practice across universities to improve curriculum design and assess the impact of these new programmes.
Find out more at www.designcouncil.org.uk/mdnetwork