Session: DEC-03-01 Innovative Practices in Design Education (Other Topics)

Paper Number: 68461

Start Time: August 18, 11:10 AM

68461 - Sustainability and Design Education: The Current Status of Product Design Higher Education in the UK 

The aim of sustainability is to fulfil the needs of current generations without compromising the needs of future generations. It is also a rising area of concern within industry, it is therefore important that graduate designers are equipped with the skills to accommodate sustainability issues as well as demands from industry. Additionally, the product design stage during New Product Development has been identified to have the greatest impact on the sustainability of the entire product, however how educated designers are on the topic of sustainability is unclear. An initial literature review has been conducted to investigate design education on sustainability as well as teaching styles. Following this the study identifies and reviews UK Product Design courses to establish the current status of sustainability integration in higher education. The exploration into university prospectuses has found that around half of UK universities implement sustainability in some way, however there are limited courses which dedicate specific modules to sustainability. Additionally, links with industry and accreditation organizations between UK product design courses have been confirmed, but there is no definite information to suggest that the universities use this to aid in the implementation sustainability education. From this review future research directions have been outlined. 

Presenting Author: Emelia Delaney Aston University

Authors:

Emelia Delaney Aston University
Wei Liu King's College London