Conference Aim

The E&PDE conference will bring together representatives from education and industry who have an interest in sharing new perspectives on design education. The conference will provide a forum for educators and researchers from product development, engineering and industrial design, together with industry and government representatives to discuss current educational issues and the nature of design education now and in the future. This year's conference theme, When Design Education and Design Research meet… aims to provide a platform for participants to explore how scientific research and education within the engineering and product design arena do, can or should strengthen each other. This theme has been chosen as it has remained relatively unexplored in previous years’ conferences; yet, design research has, especially in the past decade, grown to become a mature scientific discipline.

Issues the conference might explore include:

• How do design practitioners, educators and researchers convey state-of-the-art research to design students and how does research in turn benefit from active student involvement?
• What is the role of design students in industry research collaboration?
• What is the added value for industry in hiring designers with a research  proficiency, rather than purely design skills?
• Can excellent designers become scientific researchers and vice versa?

These questions will be explored in the following conference topics:

• Industrial relevance of design education
• Research-based education
• International collaboration
• Creating scientific attitudes among design students
• Linking Bachelor, Master and PhD level education
• New design education paradigms
• Synergies between engineering and product design education
• Teaching Design Methodology
• Best practices in design education
• Scientific methods for course evaluation
• Professional perspectives for design students
• The role of design within a technical unversity environment
• Technology transfer through design

In keeping with the inclusive ethos of the E&PDE conference other stream proposals are welcomed. It is also envisaged that participation in the conference may take a number of forms:

• Paper and Poster Presentations
• Round table discussions
• Exhibitions
• Workshops