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Research at IDE is structured in three programmes - Strategic Design (SD), User Experience (UX) and Technology Transformation (TT). It is managed through departments and sections. Each department represents a disciplinary area of expertise, with responsibility for one programme. Each of the three departments is responsible for staff, for advancing disciplinary expertise, for organising education, acquiring funding, and managing the departmental budget. Sections are groups within a department. Sections typically consist of one or two chairs and allied staff. Programmes are coordinating structures that manage parts of the research portfolio. REMARKS AND RECOMMENDATIONS The Committee believes that the presence of design, engineering and business in the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering is a key strength. The scale of IDE and the range of resources in one Faculty give IDE unique strength compared with other design schools and institutions. Collaboration with industry is very good. The Faculty welcomes collaboration with industry, and there is no concern that this collaboration will damage fundamental research. The position of the Faculty is that fundamental research can be driven by curiosity and inspired by use. IDE does fundamental research inspired by industry, as well as applied research. During the site visit, the Committee learned that the Faculty plans to overlay the organisational structure of programmes, departments, and sections with an additional structure of four themes: 1) Unlocking People, 2) Meaningful Interaction, 3) Care for our Health, and 4) Let’s Re(d)use. While the Committee applauds the bottom-up approach used to identify themes and create ownership within the organisation, the Committee has reservations about the additional layer. The Committee believes that too many different names and structures confuse the outside world and lead to a fragmented organisation. Also, the fundamental transdisciplinary research questions that underpin the four themes are poorly elaborated at this time. The interviews suggested mixed feelings about the organisational structures within IDE. The Committee recommends aligning names and making the organisation less complex. The Committee believes that IDE has too many focus areas. With three programmes and several themes per programme, critical mass per area is too low. Assessment Committee Report on Research in Industrial Design Engineering 2007-2012 9
IDE faces an important strategic choice: does the University want the Faculty to focus on research and impact in a limited number of core areas, or does it want IDE to stay a bit fuzzy to allow for maximum creativity and personal interests? The committee believes that the list of research topics is too long and some staff members share this view. It is essentially a menu from which research staff may choose topics freely. The Committee formed the impression that the strategy for the Faculty as a whole seems to be reconstructed logically from current activities. How research activities come together in the whole of the three groups is not always clear. The Committee therefore suggests developing an overall scientific question that can unite the three programmes with a clear consolidated vision, aims, and objectives. These should generate synergy among the defined areas. The Committee learned that peripheral research is already taken out and IDE stopped some of the research outside the triangle. Also IDE stopped doing research on every topic of their education. Research is only conducted when pockets of energy are present. The Committee suggests focussing on areas where there is existing critical mass, consolidating topics, and/or where there is a demonstrable international leading position as a way of improving the research development at IDE. The newly proposed themes (as part of strategy for the coming year) can clearly serve a role in the marketing of IDE such as on the website and for funding, but the Committee recommends not to waste faculty time on it. The Committee learned that the Faculty’s Advisory Board has research strategy as one of its topics and can be helpful here. The Advisory Board currently has only one member, who is also working at the University. The Committee suggests to recruit new members quickly, especially members from outside the University. It seems the Faculty has a low level of formalisation and relatively few protocols. The Committee was impressed by the way work is done in an informal way, without formal procedures. For example, collaboration within research themes seems to be motivated by individual interest rather than directed by the Faculty. IDE has international ambitions but there does not seem to be an explicit strategy in place for diversity. 10 Assessment Committee Report on Research in Industrial Design Engineering 2007-2012
Page 1 and 2: Assessment Committee Report on Rese
Page 3 and 4: Title: Assessment Committee Report
Page 5 and 6: PREFACE The Assessment Committee wa
Page 7 and 8: A short curriculum vitae of each co
Page 9: 2. ASSESSMENT OF THE INDUSTRIAL DES
Page 13 and 14: Members of the Faculty have publish
Page 15 and 16: 2.3 RELEVANCE TO SOCIETY While rese
Page 17 and 18: alanced in terms of developing youn
Page 19 and 20: TOTAL 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
Page 21 and 22: The Faculty seem to run its PhD tra
Page 23 and 24: 3. ASSESSMENTS OF INDIVIDUAL RESEAR
Page 25 and 26: The Committee dealt with this dilem
Page 27 and 28: 3.2 RESEARCH PROGRAMME USER EXPERIE
Page 29 and 30: RELEVANCE TO SOCIETY The research o
Page 31 and 32: 3.3 RESEARCH PROGRAMME TECHNOLOGY T
Page 33 and 34: TT recognises that a strategy chang
Page 35 and 36: APPENDIX A MEMBERS CURRICULA VITAE
Page 37 and 38: for Engineering Product Development
Page 39 and 40: APPENDIX B PROGRAMME SITE VISIT Wed
Page 41 and 42: 16.30 - 17.15 - Prof. Patrick Whitn
Page 43: APPENDIX C EXPLANATION OF THE SEP S

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