Dear All,

Let me add a couple of comments to this interesting thread.

I agree with much of what has been said, but at the risk of tripping 
over myself, I respond to Jacques Giard's and Glenn Johnson's 
responses.

The key issue is that the PhD is a research degree. It is an advanced 
degree in the professional practice of research rather than an 
advanced degree in professional practice of design.

As a research degree, the PhD is required for positions that entail 
research responsibility. Jacques noted that many funding agencies 
require the PhD as a qualification for grants. There are two other 
areas of research responsibility internal to the university.

One area of research responsibility is PhD supervision. Those who 
teach in fields of professional practice are required to have learned 
and mastered the practice they teach to share their skills and 
knowledge with others. This is the case for design, medicine, cooking 
-- in fact, it is the case for nearly all fields anchored in 
practice. Research is a specific practice. The PhD education is a 
training program in the professional practice of research. It is an 
education in research skills and research methods as well as an 
opportunity for advanced learning and individual research in the 
specific subject field of the PhD. Surgeons or chefs study and 
practice at the highest level to develop the knowledge and skills 
required for teaching and supervising the next generation of surgeons 
and chefs. Developing the skills and knowledge to supervise and teach 
research students requires the same kind of background. This is 
particularly the case for those aspects of PhD supervision involving 
skills and knowledge remote from the supervisor's own field. A solid, 
well-rounded research degree provides the basis for knowing how to 
help our doctoral students develop skills we do not use in our own 
work. The breadth requirements and courses in comparative research 
methodology required in every good PhD program are more than a basis 
of personal knowledge. They are a foundation course for those who 
will go on to teach and supervise research students.

The other area is curriculum development. It is difficult to take 
responsibility for a university-level research program without a 
thorough background in research. The PhD is normally the beginning of 
that background.

It is possible to be a lecturer or a even a professor without a PhD. 
One does not need a PhD to be a good studio professor. The problem 
arises when professors are asked to supervise research degrees or 
plan research programs by virtue of the fact that they sit in the 
professor's chair. I won't go into the horror problems that I've 
witnessed over the years when excellent studio professors take on 
research responsibilities for which they are not suited. Many people 
mistakenly believe that they suddenly develop research skills when 
they acquire the title "professor." The worst problems I have seen 
involve excellent practitioners hired as professors who find 
themselves required to deal with research. There are other ways to 
reach the same unhappy state. Some lecturers and even professors with 
a PhD have slipped through questionable programs to earn a degree. 
They don't have the skills they need, even though they hold a PhD 
degree.

There are professors without a PhD who have made it their business to 
master the required skills. Chris Rust is an exemplar here.

For the most part, preparing for a career in research involves 
serious people doing a solid PhD degree in a good program by 
mastering research skills with skilled and responsible supervisors. 
The role of those supervisors is to ensure that the new PhD graduates 
have the background they need to develop into good supervisors and 
research teachers.

Developing research skills and the ability to teach and supervise 
research students is why we might "need" a PhD.

Tao Huang, Chris Rust, and Catherine Harper explained beautifully why 
we might "want" a PhD, whether or not we need it.

If your goal is lecturing or teaching design practice, there is no 
need for a PhD. If you wish to do research and to supervise and teach 
research students, a PhD (and what you learn while earning it) is 
useful. You can become a professor coming up through either track.

-- 

Prof. [Dr.] Ken Friedman
Institute for Communication, Culture, and Language
Norwegian School of Management
Oslo

Center for Design Research
Denmark's Design School
Copenhagen

+47 46.41.06.76    Tlf NSM
+47 33.40.10.95    Tlf Privat

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