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Dear Ken Sorry for the delayed reply. I made one but then i pushed the wrong button and it was gone without me noticing that it never made it to the list. Though some days have passed i still feel that i should answer because i feel a bit misinterpreted and also may be we disagree on some points. I couldn't resend my reply before because i was tied up with teaching master students, advising doctoral students, working on a boat design I am engaged with and planning a sound active installation that should be coming up within the next year or so. This sounds crazy and it is, but it also illustrates my point. I believe that in-between these practices there is a special type of knowledge generated that is neither possible by just practicing or just by research. It is what i called the only type of research only possible done by designers. That does absolutely not mean that I think there is only one right way of research. I apologize for being unclear. My point is that there is a trade-off between different knowledges. This does not mean lowering the standards but that the emphasis and mix of backgrounds and knowledges will vary in different modes of design research some times on the cost of the depth of academic knowledge. We need to realize this trade off or i would prefer to call it negotiation of knowledges but it seems very few do. Robson writes about the advantages and disadvantages of the insider perspective. The problems of the practitioner researcher: -lack of time -lack of experience -lack of confidence -insider problems Insider problems are: Preconceptions, lack of distance to the material, hierarchy problems The benefits of practitioner-research: Insider opportunities: Pre-existing knowledge and experience, Practitioner opportunities: less implementation problems Practitioner-researcher synergy: Robson claims that the practitioner experience helps to the carry out of useful and appropriate studies (relevance) Robson (1993) Real World Research, Blackwell, Oxford (If somebody could contribute to this it would be great.) I think I basically agree with most of what you say, like not all design research can seamlessly integrate with practice, sure but some of it should (and i think we agree). Robin Adams mentioned an upcoming book by Van de Ven where this is seen as a contradiction between those who emphasize rigour and generalisation (academics) and those closer to practice who emphasize relevance. I think we need to look for relevance with rigour! But as you can read from my former mail I would be willing to trade off rigour for relevance as long as it generates new perspectives on our way to make more of design expressions and practices researchable. The question and difficulty is then not only if practitioner researchers are good enough or sloppy in their research, but the difficulty comes also from the fields that are much harder to investigate in a rigorous way. So we have to look into what kind of methods and rigour we are talking about and here i wish to say a little about hypotheses and truth.... I am a little confused about your way of using the word "true" and hypothesis. I thought since long that "true" and "false" are terms hard to use in many areas of design research or related fields. I would suggest terms like valid or justified. Also the term hypothesis is difficult in all inductive research as stated by grounded theory. A hypothesis in the traditional sense is a pre-stated statement that is to be verified or falsified through experiments (deduction). The term "research question" is in my mind a more openly stated hypothesis. Grounded theory takes a different starting point, avoiding any preconception of the research field to avoid biasing an explorative research. I guess a lot of research by design can go into this category and can benefit from an explorative mode. Analyses (more or less inspired by grounded theory) would be the methodology combined with comparative studies or triangulated with other approaches which would result in the desired rigour but not in a statement of "true" or "false". The emerging theories from the analyses are the generalising part of the process. Ken, I coincidentally just stumbled across some of your work from the FLUXUS period. Great stuff!! Just out of curiosity, could you speculate about how you might research this material historically? Can you establish a hypothesis and verify it? Or could you speculate about it from the research through practice point of view? Let's say you would imagine a research by design project interlocked with your practice at that time, how would your research design look and what kind of rigour would be needed? How would it (looking back) influence and feed back into that art practice and vice versa? Or would you regard these as totally separate processes which would not benefit from being "laminar"? Best whishes Birger Sevaldson Professor AHO Oslo -----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 Ken Friedman Sent: 5. desember 2006 18:36 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Is a PhD necessary for lectureship ? -- reply to Birger Sevaldson Dear Birger, Thanks for your post. It seems to me that the intellectual ecology of any thriving field needs several kinds of research. Given the broad scope of the design field and the fact that no single school and no single company and no single designer can practice all forms of design, it is impossible to make the sweeping claim that there is only one kind of design research. One of the problems that I observe in many areas of practice-linked design research is the inability to draw reasonable generalizations from otherwise excellent projects. Excellent projects may generate new insights, methods, and practices without sustaining generalizations. That is why we need several kinds of research. More than this, the tendency of clinical research to move swiftly forward is another reason for more than one kind of design research. Clinical research often yields hypotheses that researchers present as truth claims. For that matter, working designers often assert that a product or process works when careful testing demonstrates that it may not work as it seems to do, and that sometimes it may not work at all. Since personal passion drives good research, I agree that designers engaging in research may find "certain types of (design) knowledge [that are] only acquired or developed through research by design." These involve "developing new insights, methods and practices." Nevertheless, moving from these to generalized theories must involve more than "a systematic investigation involving both research by design and reflection This also involves testing, comparison, and using additional methods of ionquiry. This is where comparative research methods and philosophy of science are required for a robust PhD program. This, in fact, is the difference between a degree in advanced professional practice and a PhD. Even allowing for the possibility that a PhD might be awarded without these - as is the case for some PhD degrees today - these are vital for anyone who will go on to supervise and teach research. Unless we distinguish between a PhD degree that indicates the ability to do one's own research and a PhD that qualifies one to teach research and to supervise research students, the PhD must include both. The German system does this, in effect, by requiring the habilitation. In the new Bologna era of 3-year PhDs, this may become the practice when universities and university-level design school can no longer be sure that a PhD indicates the ability to teach or supervise research students. It is difficult to see how ALL design research can be "seamlessly connected to design practice and tutoring." This is possible in some cases. It is not the case for everyone involved in design research and it cannot be. Some of us find philosophy of science valuable, and others of us are curious enough to believe that testing truth claims is as important to research as proposing hypotheses. Since untested hypotheses remain hypotheses, even though people accept them as true, there is room in design research for both approaches. Yours, Ken -- Prof. 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 email: [log in to unmask]