Hi Chris,
Thanks for your reminder.
I'm aware that many institutional arrangements of the PhD were 'in theory'
not subject specific. PhDs have, however, in practical terms have in most
universities been almost totally managed under the fiefdoms of discipline
areas and thus been subject specific
In my previous email I was pointing to signs of a move to a new order in
PhDs that aligns with and is part of the moves towards a new order in
university management. These moves appear to be towards a situation in
which the universities are managed by professional managers; universities
are focused on mass training of people to have skills of use by society and
businesses; and academics are the workers whose teaching and research is as
closely managed as in any business. This contrasts with the guild-like
collegial arrangements that were found in many universities until recently
in which academics managed universities according to their personal and
group interests. The inclusion of the 'Art and Design' disciplines into
universities was part of this transition to the new order, and have since
been an active contributor to it by increasing and improving the
relationship between academic and business interests.
In the current increasingly fast changing educational scenario, rigid
discipline boundaries potentially create difficulties for university
managers and inhibit flexibility of response of education institutions.
The types of jobs and education needed by individuals is changing rapidly in
line with the rate of formation of new jobs and the disappearance of many
existing job roles. In terms of benefits to society, rigid discipline
boundaries that are aligned with conditions decades ago delay the
development of education and research outcomes appropriate to the present
and the near future. Systemically, this can be perceived as a problem in
which significantly increasing variety of the system's environment (i.e.
what is needed) is incompletely matched by the variety on the supply side
because rigid discipline boundaries limit the variety of potential education
and research. Typically, a mismatch of variety of this form leads to
instability, system failure, opportunism from outside, and pressure for
change. One response to reduce the mismatch of variety between need and
supply is to increase potential variety on the supply side by removing the
bound between disciplines so that the permutations and combinations of
education (and research) provision can increase. Modularisation of courses
is part of this increase in supply side variety to enable mixing and
matching across disciplines.
For PhDs, variety of education provision can be increased to attempt to
match the variety of societal and business needs via a centralised very
flexible support environment. Centralising the PhD program can increase
variety by avoiding the restrictions on variety of research output created
by discipline-specific PhD support. (The risk is that, for economic or
social reasons, the centralised support environment can itself become
rigidised over time and reduce variety). Centralisation also offers the
potential for efficient effort to increase the quality and consistency of
doctoral outcomes - a major potential marketing factor for universities
wishing to engage competitively with industry and business in innovation.
These are real forces and factors shaping the future of doctoral education.
I'm suggesting that the implication is a global move away from narrowly
discipline-specific programs such as a 'PhD in Design'. The intermediate
step is a 'chunking' of disciplines and institutions. I feel this
intermediate stage is what can be seen in your university, Sheffield Hallam,
in its new (and likely to be very successful) grouping of
innovation-focused fields into a single faculty; at Lancaster University in
the new innovation institute that Rachel Cooper has formed; and in the new
amalgamation of universities in Finland.
My feeling is these changes will result in a greater uptake of design
research across many fields whilst being hard on traditional design
disciplines newly included in universities as they lose the opportunity for
making a guild-like culture in the university milieu, and as they
potentially lose the possibility of schools, departments and whatever being
called 'Design'.
The future is bright though possibly not the one we were expecting!
Thoughts?
All the best,
Terry
PS some of these and other ideas were published in Tellefsen, B., & Love, T.
(2002) (made available 2004). Doctoral Research in Design: The Future of the
Practice-based Doctorate. International Journal of Design Science and
Technology, 10(2), pp. 45-59. A preprint is available at
http://www.love.com.au/PublicationsTLminisite/2004/future_of_design_doctorat
e.htm
-----Original Message-----
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related
research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Chris
Rust
Sent: Wednesday, 6 June 2007 2:16 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Ph.D. Programs in Design ?
Terence Love wrote:
> The implication is this initiative moves away from the idea of subject
> specific PhD programs.
>
>
As Terry will be aware, UK PhD's have always followed this pattern, with
universities (or the old Polytechnic Qualifications Council - CNAA) awarding
PhD's based on an institution-wide framework. Although we have become more
"programmed" of late, the framework has always been generic allowing for
some diversity of interpretation by different disciplines.
For example our engineeering PhD's tend to be based in research groups with
specialist labs which each provide a support environment and suitable peer
group, whereas Art and Design PhD's have a single support programme
reflecting the more individualist research and smaller numbers of doctoral
students, and very small number of post-docs, in those disciplines
best
Chris
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