Hello Nicola, Terence and List,
Terence's post and complaints reminded me of  the situation in Finland 
some 15 years ago.
Thanks to many many kinds of efforts, design research (including 
different approaches and topics) is at the moment an acknowledged field
receiving grants from various sources. Can one speak of progress here?
yours, Susann Vihma


Nicola Morelli wrote:

>HI Terence,
>
>Yes, I found exactly the same barriers, and I migrated to another country. There is another barrier: once the first ARC project has been completed, a researcher is supposed to apply for a new research, but he/she should apply for a higher level (I had a postDoc approved, therefore the following application should have been for a "Australian Research Fellowship". At the higher level the expectations for the application are very very high. Usually you need to have a lot of publication and, as you know, the possibilities to publish for a design researcher are much lower than those for a researcher in biochemistry or other disciplines. About 30 research fellowship are funded each year and, of course, they go to people who publish no less than 50 papers a year.
>
>With regard the specification of the discipline, I found the same problem. When my first application was examined the assessors in Art and Humanities asked a member of another panel, which was also working in my Faculty, some names for assessors in the design areas, this person asked me some names (she was a sociologist and she knew no one).
>
>In a second application there were severa sociological implication, therefore the application was sent to 2 sociologists, who destroied it, because it wasn't allined to the tradition of sociological studies...
>
>I have the impression, though, that the Australian situation is not an exception, in many other countries the definition of a dsicplinary domain  for design research is not clear and this becomes a clear barrier to research in this area.
>
>Cheers
>
>Nicola Morelli
>
>Cheers
>
>
>________________________________
>
>From: Design Research Society on behalf of Terence Love
>Sent: Wed 11/12/2003 2:35 AM
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Barriers to design research?
>
>
>
>Dear All,
>
>Getting a competitive ARC grant is the key to academic status in Australia - both for the individuals concerned and for legitimation of the sub-discipline. In Australia, an area of study hasn't really 'arrived'
>until there have been a few ARC grants obtained.  To give a broad-brush picture, there are around a thousand research projects funded each year, and submissions are assessed via six expert advisory committees (EACs):
>
>* Biological Sciences & Biotechnology
>* Engineering and Environmental Sciences
>* Humanities & Creative Arts
>* Mathematics, Information & Communication Sciences
>* Physics, Chemistry & Geoscience
>* Social, Environmental & Economic Sciences
> 
>The 'Humanities and Creative Arts' EAC claims design research as part of its brief. There lies a problem - rather a whole bundle of problems. First, the scope of the panel is very broad - all humanities areas plus all creative arts areas. Design is included even thought there is little awareness in the ARC that there are at least 600 sub-disciplines of design. Second, Humanities and Creative Arts is poorly funded compared to other EACs. Third, although the Humanities and Creative Arts EAC is supposed to include design research,  it typically funds only   two smallish design research projects each year. Even more problematically, and perhaps because of the weight of interest of committee members, the design research that is funded is mainly in design history and heritage. Four, the time commitment, particularly for small research funding submissions is substantial and often beyond the resources of those in a new field such as design research. A rough assessment I undertook two years ago indicated the preparation time for an ARC finding submission is around 250 hours (assuming all the underlying research and literature review has already been done and the researchers have already established strong research profiles). The chances of success are around 25% and the funding for less established researchers will typically be around 70% of what is regarded as the minimum on which the project can be undertaken. Thus, out of research project funding one has to find approximately 1000 hours additional salary (4 x 250 hours for each successful submission) plus the 30% shortfall in the budget. This is a considerable ask for research-only staff. For those in teaching and research posts (the normal lecturer) it is clearly impossible to find the 1000 hours to make a successful ARC submission whilst undertaking ongoing research to maintain one's research profile.  The situation for nationally well established researchers in other disciplines can be much easier: typically they are applying to well funded EACs; their national profile means the EACs have more confidence in them (research submissions are not blind reviewed) and hence their success rate is higher; typically projects form clusters so the writing of submissions is more routine and builds on the success of, and forms a sequence with, related projects; and typically nationally successful researchers have low teaching loads, good administrative resources, and are supported by post-docs and research fellows.
>
>Few Australian design researchers submit to the ARC. This is not surprising bearing in mind that annual academic workload is approximately 1650 hours per year; and, for lecturers, teaching and administration typically occupies 1400 hours per year. Of the ones that do make submissions, very few Australian design researchers are 'well-established' in ways that facilitate success with ARC grants. In effect, for design researchers in Australia there is a serious barrier to entry to ARC research funding and the benefits that go with the status of having successfully obtained such funding.
>
>Addressing and resolving this issue is a key factor in the continuing development of the design research field in Australia. Hegemonic analysis of the situation indicates no obviously straightforward and successful ways forward. One possibility in some disciplines may be to make the bridge to, and build on, related disciplines whilst clearly differentiating design research from research in the related discipline. For example, those researching engineering design activities might align with research into engineering for the purposes of competitive ARC grant funding - whilst being clear in the application that this is research into design rather than engineering. The same possibilities are open for research into other areas such as Information Systems design, virtual organisation design, social systems design, the designing of complex modelling systems etc. A risk is that design research will again be subsumed into related disciplines (e.g. engineering design will be seen as engineering and graphic design seen as Art).
>
>Wondering if other design researchers have found this 'barrier' effect when trying to access research funding?
>
>Best wishes,
>
>Terence
>_______________
>
>Dr. Terence Love
>Curtin Research Fellow
>Dept of Design
>Curtin University
>Western Australia
>+61 (0)8 9305 7629
>[log in to unmask]
>_______________
>  
>