About the project

This project assembles the body of transdisciplinary PhD outputs in Design at AHO in the form of compilation based and monograph type theses, supported by institutional, national and international research funding. Specific PhD projects in addition each have their own project page and links to related larger projects and research networks.

Part of our strategy at the Institute of Design has been to build a body of design based research with and through doctoral studies in transdisciplinary design. While individual PhDs are positioned in relation to key design disciplines, they are informed by multiple models of practice and multimodal configurations.

The body of PhD theses we have developed in the past two decades spans and connects a range of design domains and disciplines, including Product, Interaction, Service and Systems Design.

In the main, our PhDs follow a thesis by compilation approach. This entails peer reviewed Publications (conference papers, journal articles, book chapters, reports, exhibitions, and multimedia works) supported by an Exegesis (kappe).

This list of PhDs reflect the close interplay between teaching based research and research based teaching. It also features diverse configuration of design enquiry with research, industry, educational, creative, and public and community partners.

While AHOs theses in Design follow a practice based approach in many instances, the mode of research has generally been centred in producing academic and critical reflections on practice and the mediation of diversity of practice, artefacts, processes, and outcomes. AHO PhDs in several instances also teach in related Master’s programmes in conjunction with research projects and priority strategic areas.

For the details of the design doctorates at AHO, please see the menu item ‘Publications’ above. These are listed in the database ADORA. For the compilation-type doctoral thesis, the category of the Exegesis is listed as ‘main document’ and Publications are shown by the listed items. It is important that readers know that these together make the entire thesis. For further details, please see each individual PhD project pages.

A list of supervisors involved in design doctorates at AHO can be seen by referring to the item ‘People‘ in the AHO Doctorates in Design project menu above. Further details of specific supervisors are provided on each PhD project page.

New and ongoing PhDs in Design can be found under the Projects page on this site.

For related research on design doctoral education, please see the DesDoc (Design Doctoral Education) project site.

AHO PhDs in Design are also presented in the AHO WORKS Research Review 2013-2017 under the project QUALITY FOR IMPACT.