Design Research Centre

Design is an application of creativity for the benefit of people and society. It is multi-disciplinary by its nature and incorporates diverse fields from humanities and arts to sciences and engineering.

The Design Research Centre (DRC) brings together experts from different disciplines interested in the practice, theory, and history of design. It fosters new approaches to design thinking, design enquiry, design implementation and the use of design techniques and related technologies to make positive societal, economic and environmental impacts.

The DRC operates in the areas of Product, Furniture, Medical, Retail, Consumer, Engineering, Environmental, Graphic, Media, Virtual and User Interaction and User Experience Design. It exemplifies the cross-disciplinary interplay between practice and theory within a research context and seeks to engage a wide range of industry and non-profit stakeholders, as well as social enterprises and charities.

Building on the fundamental nature of design to enable, collaboration is at the heart of the DRC’s operational ethos, reaching out to other Schools and Research Centres across NTU and other academic, industry and non-profit organisations nationally and internationally.

The DRC contributes significantly to research and practice within the School, across the university and beyond, and plays a key role in the development of Early Career Researchers at NTU.

Find out everything you need to know about funding your doctoral studies – from tuition fees and loans, to studentships and external funding.

Partnerships and Collaborations:

1. Medical Technology Innovation Facility (MTIF).
2. Fastlab, Newcastle University (New South Wales)
3. The Design Matter, Design Research Group
4. UK National representative for COST Action CA16226 (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) Management Committee– Indoor living space improvement: Smart habitat for the older persons (2017-2021) and Working Group, Furniture and Habitat
5. The Industrial Innovation Centre Oman

Publications

1. Designing consumer electronic products for the circular economy using recycled Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS): A case study.
2. The Evolution of the Image: Political Action and the Digital Self.
3. The Development of Responsible and Sustainable Business Practice: Value, Mind-Sets, Business-Models.
4. Capturing characteristics of the conceptual ideation process of master crafts persons to inform design education: a comparative study of rural craft practitioners in Indonesia and in the UK.
5. Illustration in Motion.
6. In Search of a Performing Seal: Rethinking the Design of Tight-Fitting Respiratory Protective Equipment Facepieces for Users with Facial Hair.
7. Combined X-ray diffraction and absorption tomography using a conical shell beam.
8. Design for Personalisation.
9. Design, Dirt and Disposal: Influences on the maintenance of vacuum cleaners.
10. NPD, Design and Management for SME’s.
11. Understanding Personalisation: New Aspects of Design and Consumption
12. Design for Personalisation

Flagship Projects

1. Impacting Business by Design
2. Motif 
3. Smart Mattress for Neonatal Babies
4. Lost Detectives
5. Car Door Mate for Arthr Ltd (Versus Arthritis)

Find out more about the Design Research Centre's current groups and projects:

Design Matter

Medical Technology Innovation Facility

Impacting Business by Design

Medical Engineering Design, Design Research Group

UK National representative for COST Action CA16226 (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) Management Committee– Indoor living space improvement: Smart habitat for the older persons (2017-2021) and Working Group, Furniture and Habitat

Collaboration with Faculty of Art and Design, Bandung Institute of Technology, Indonesia reviewing for their annual design conference and working with Dr Junaidy in the Human-Interior Space Research Group

Sustainable Consumption Group

Clothing Sustainability Research Group