Hi Ken (and please, anyone else who wishes to join this discussion)

I accept that you were describing the default position, and reiterating the history of the award to the present day. But - bluntly, I don't give a damn what the position of the award has been up until now. Maybe it's the vestiges of a designer in me, but I feel that the sector is big enough and experienced enough to disrupt whatever default position and determine for itself the nature of such an award, what it is for, and how it is taught. I have seen the history lesson many times, and if we are not careful it's straitjacket.

There is however a constant undercurrent in the way you discuss the sector. It is clear that you [rightly] hold the sciences in great esteem, but at the same time denigrate what is happening in design. I sometimes feel that I inhabit a different world, where there is great research going on, some very competent research students being graduated, and it is happening in many centres around the world. You sent me a note off list giving your opinion on some 'serious' PhD programmes. Not one was in the UK. That is frankly ridiculous. I know the UK environment very well, have been a member of a couple of national research assessment panels etc., and see an increasing number of competent researchers/supervisors in these islands together with some great work by students. From where I stand the UK looks in pretty good shape in design research. The RAE and REF results are online for anyone who wants to check this out. Sure, there are some subject specialisms that are stronger than others, but there is a great deal of motivation and support in the British universities that has been building for some years.

Worldwide, the sector has had a lot of experience of research degrees since the time of the 1998 conference on doctorates in design, following which this list was set up. The sector is in a very different situation today. Perhaps it is time for design to move on and be a little disruptive, in the spirit of innovative design? I feel sure that the sector is quite capable of constructing its own doctoral award of relevance to design. Eduardo seemed to raise this possibility, and it's a position that is becoming clearer to me as time goes by.

On the question of teaching postdoctorally, there is little or nothing in any of the PhD programmes I have seen in detail that teaches anything about supervision. Personally, it's the hardest teaching I have ever done. There is an assumption that by doing a PhD one is equipped to supervise. That has not been my experience, by a big margin. Maybe that should be an elective in any new curriculum?

On the question of teaching undergraduate students postdoctorally, if I were an undergraduate design student again I would want to be taught by exactly the kinds of tutor that did teach me - people with a design degree and current professional design experience. Some say that the push towards ever more PhD holders in university design departments is dangerous, on the basis that their PhD and research expertise is valuable only if they have a solid grounding in doing design. 

I once heard a conversation about hiring a pattern cutter in a fashion department, under a university diktat that the job must be advertised as PhD qualification being 'essential'. The course leader feared that 'essential' may well have limited the pool of applicants to zero. What was needed for the post was solid industrial (and current) experience in pattern cutting. Not research skills, nor a PhD qualification. Clearly a bonus if the skills and qualification were present in the same person, but at that time highly unlikely.

A few years ago, the push towards PhD qualification in landscape architecture led to IFLA issuing a statement that the teaching of design practice would suffer due to the influx of non design practitioner tutors.

I chose to undertake a PhD study mid career following a spell in professional design practice. That led me naturally to a university life, but I have never forgotten that the people I look up to are skilled practising designers. Where would we [researchers] be without them?

kind regards
David

___________________________________________________________________

David Durling  HonFDRS PhD 
Professor of Design Research
Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Coventry University, UK
[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>   http://durling.tel <http://durling.tel/> 
Vice President IASDR  iasdr.org <http://iasdr.org/>  













> On 2 Jan 2018, at 18:49, Ken Friedman <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 
> Dear David,
> 
> You wrote,
> 
> —snip—
> 
> However, I too am curious about the notion that a PhD is the licence to teach other PhDs in a self perpetuating system. This seems to me to be a rather out of date view of the benefit of a solid research training. 
> 
> —snip—
> 
> When you ask this way, it seems puzzling. But it’s not what I meant. Gunnar Swanson was critical to that notion, and I am, too.  
> 
> Several people asked me privately if what I meant was that every PhD graduate should take up a career of research and teaching. I did not. What I argue is that following graduation with a PhD, graduates should have the skill to go on to supervise people in doctoral programs if they should choose to work at universities.
> 
> It was formerly the case at German universities that the PhD degree was not a license to teach. This required a specific thesis, the Habilitation, sometimes called the post-doctoral dissertation. You can see the distinction on the web site of the University of Postdam: 
> 
> https://www.uni-potsdam.de/en/wiso/research/post-doctoral-dissertation.html
> 
> In universities that preserve this tradition, someone one who wishes to teach writes a second thesis called the habilitation that is intended to demonstrate whether one is capable of teaching research students. I am not sure whether this is still the case in all German universities following the Bologna treaty.
> 
> For most of the world, no one issues a PhD that states “This degree specifically does not qualify the person who holds it to teach research students at a university.” No one takes such a degree, either. Given the development and history of universities, therefore, the default position is that one must gain the skills for what will frequently be a career choice.   
> 
> In my earlier note on the list, I made the allowance for choosing to work at a university or not. The PhD thesis is the journeyman piece for admission to the guild of research, science, and scholarship. This is the research university, defined by the original meaning of the term university (universitas) as the corporation (collegiate body, or guild) of masters and scholars.   
> 
> To be a full senior member of any guild, field, or profession requires the ability to transmit knowledge of the field to the next generation. The full senior members in any guild, field, or profession embody the knowledge of the field. 
> 
> If any member chooses not to share that knowledge and chooses not to take apprentices, that is a personal choice. Those who do choose to take students must be able to teach them.
> 
> Those people must be able to transmit the knowledge of the field to the next generation. That applies to those who prefer to work in the context of the university. Those who work exclusively in a laboratory or in private practice probably won’t transit their knowledge. If, however, they do want to teach people to do research, one purpose of the PhD is to demonstrate that they have the skills to do so.
> 
> One does not need to choose to work at a university, but one must have the skills that would permit one to do so. Since the PhD thesis is the journeyman’s piece, it demonstrates the same set of skills.
> 
> The reality today is that very few people who graduate with a PhD will ever hold full time, tenured university jobs. The number of these jobs is shrinking in all advanced industrial nations, and more and more university positions are filled by part-time and adjunct staff. I would not suggest that anyone get a PhD today in the hope of a university teaching job.
> 
> Perhaps this means changing the previous default position. I was describing the system as it has been until now.
> 
> Yours,
> 
> Ken
> 
> Ken Friedman | Editor-in-Chief | 设计 She Ji. The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation | Published by Tongji University in Cooperation with Elsevier | URL: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/she-ji-the-journal-of-design-economics-and-innovation/
> 
> Chair Professor of Design Innovation Studies | College of Design and Innovation | Tongji University | Shanghai, China ||| Email [log in to unmask] | Academia http://swinburne.academia.edu/KenFriedman | D&I http://tjdi.tongji.edu.cn 
> 
> 
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