Design Research and Art-Based Design Education Programs

Abstract

Introduction This article describes a model for establishing national design research and upgrading art-based design education programs at the university level. It aims to provide an overview of the development and achievements of design research in Denmark against a particular political, organizational, academic, and professional background during a ten-year period. Having served as the director of the Danish Centre of Design Research (DCDR) from 2007 to 2012,1 I try, as objectively as possible, to review the background for the political decision to establish the Centre, its actual establishment, the research evaluation in 2010, and the closing of the Centre in 2012. In 2000 the Danish Evaluation Institute presented an evaluation of the Danish design education programs under the auspices of the Danish Ministry of Culture.2 This evaluation, called Design 2000, recommended that research activities be established at the institutions of design education. Following the issuance of the evaluation report, the Danish Parliament decided to found the DCDR in 2003. The DCDR’s purpose was to support the establishment of a joint design research capacity for the four Danish institutions offering design education programs: Aarhus School of Architecture (ASA), The Danish Design School (DDS), Kolding School of Design (KSD), and the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture (RDA/SoA). The plan included a scheduled research evaluation in 2010, which would serve as the basis for a decision about the future of the DCDR, design research in Denmark and the organization of it. The evaluation was carried out as scheduled and gave a highly favorable assessment of the DCDR’s achievements. After the general election in 2011, both the DCDR and the design education programs were transferred to the Ministry of Education and Research, which oversees the other institutions of higher learning in Denmark. In 2012, the Danish government decided to close the DCDR and reallocate its annual grant of DKK 3.6 million to the three partner institutions. (Two of the original four had merged in 2011.3)