New Erasmus+ Project about Design Doctorate Education across Europe

D.Doc is a transnational research for an Open Educational Resource (OER) to facilitate transparency, internationalisation and evidence of excellence for the European doctorate in design (2020-2022).

Project funded by Erasmus+

D. Doc Official Webpage: d-doc.eu

D.Doc is a transnational project that aims to increase transparency in the conditions, qualifications, and practices of doctoral education in design across Europe. Considering the limited internationalisation at the doctoral level education, transparently exchanging knowledge, practices, and experiences among universities and institutions can increase international collaboration and knowledge exchange.  

Vast amounts of unordered, unconnected and often inaccessible material relating to the learning, teaching and assessment processes of the design doctorate and its tangible outputs/outcomes reside in academic institutions. By providing an open communication platform among institutions, the project aims 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 reveal 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). 

Access to information embodied in the OER will have a positive impact on potential and existing doctoral students as well as supervisors. Academic faculties/schools/departments can also gain new insights from this research. By sharing skills and qualifications that design doctorates embed and provide research funders, government agencies, and industries can also have access to potential collaborators. 

Partner Institutions: 

Aalto University; Loughborough University; Middle East Technical University; Sapienza Universita di Roma; ATIT BVBA Audiovisual Technologies, Informatics and Communications. 

The principal investigators of the project: 

Maarit Mäkelä (Aalto University, Finland), Mark Evans, (Loughborough University, United Kingdom), Owain Pedgley (Middle East Technical University, Turkey), Lorenzo Imbessi (Sapienza Universita di Roma, Italy), Mathy Vanbuel (ATIT BVBA, Belgium). 

Researchers

Bilge Merve Aktaş, (Postdoctoral researcher, Contact person at Aalto University, Finland)