Consortium Strengthens Research Education

In 2006, the Danish research education consortium DKAD was established with a view to strengthening the Danish research education programmes in architecture and design and thus recruitment for the research environment. The consortium launches activities aiming to facilitate the ongoing dialogue in the Ph.D. environment about what it means to do research in the field of tension between science and artistic development work.

By Hans Emborg Bünemann

Stronger national coordination efforts and a greater emphasis on the international perspective in the Ph.D. programmes in architecture and design in Denmark: Those are two of the benefits that stand out at this point, a year and a half after the founding of the  Danish research education consortium DKAD, according to Henrik Oxvig, associate professor and head of research education at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture.
“From the outset, all the schools shared a motivation for establishing the consortium, which was the desire to qualify the dialogue between theory and practice in the research education environment,” says Henrik Oxvig. “The fact that a substantial part of our research essentially springs from practice poses a particular challenge for research.”

DKAD, the Danish Doctoral Schools of Architecture & Design, was established in 2006 with funding from Danish Agency for Science, Technology and Innovation.

A Stronger Competitive Position for the Artistic Aspect

As Henrik Oxvig sees it, the challenge is to establish a discourse between theory and practice that lets the artistic aspect contribute to scientific development. This challenge should be seen in light of the fact that research funding in Denmark is increasingly awarded in a competition between the universities based on politically determined, strategic criteria, where the artistic area is not exactly at the top of the agenda. Henrik Oxvig says,
“The consortium definitely makes the architecture and design environment a stronger player in the Danish university sector as far as the competition for funding is concerned. In itself, having an organisational framework for developing the Ph.D. area improves our capacity for fundraising.”

Establishing a Research Environment

DKAD covers the Ph.D. area for the schools of architecture and design in Denmark. The schools of architecture have university status, while the design schools have the status of vocational schools. Formally, senior researchers and Ph.D. scholars working at the design schools are employees of the schools of architecture. However, all four schools are faced with the major task of ensuring the recruitment of qualified researchers to establish design research environments able to prove their worth in an evaluation of the design research area that is scheduled for 2010. All the schools have representatives on the board of DKAD, which plays a key role in this initial phase. As Henrik Oxvig sees it, it is essential for the research environment itself to be in charge of educating young researchers:
“In this unique field of tension between scientific and artistic development processes, it’s crucial to ensure the internal training and recruitment of researchers,” he says, adding that internally trained researchers will be familiar with handling the close ties between research and practice.

DKAD coordinates Ph.D. activities in the Danish schools of architecture and design.

Research-Based Education

Furthermore, the design schools will need researchers in coming years to handle teaching responsibilities in the research-based design education programmes. Henrik Oxvig believes that it is important to preserve and develop the artistic dimension as well. Here, DKAD offers a platform for facilitating the necessary recruitment by improving the quality of the research education. The schools are striving to increase the uptake, partly through the Industrial Ph.D. programme, where the Danish government covers up to half of the salary cost during the three-year programme for companies that employ a Ph.D. scholar.

Internationalisation and Master Classes

Furthermore, DKAD promotes the growing internationalisation of the research education programmes in design and architecture. The consortium offers a strong basis for finding partners abroad and enables the schools to join forces in shouldering the task of growing internationalisation. The consortium organises courses with presentations by acknowledged foreign architecture and design researchers and other lecturers. One tried and tested concept is the master class format: First, a number of study groups are arranged where the Ph.D. scholars study the guest lecturer’s oeuvre. During the visit, the students present their own projects and discuss them with the lecturer. This leads to constructive discussions, as the students are already familiar with the guest’s theoretical framework and terminology.
Henrik Oxvig says that the next master class takes place on 24 April this year with Sébastien Marot, the French landscape and architecture theorist.

Future Events

The emphasis on academic activities with contributions from leading foreign researchers continues in the future. In June 2008, DKAD hosts a research symposium featuring the Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson and presentations by acknowledged researchers from the USA, Australia, France and Germany. In September, in collaboration with the Danish Centre for Design Research, the consortium will host an international conference entitled Politics of Designing, with Jacques Rancière, emeritus professor of philosophy at Université de Paris, as the keynote speaker.

In 2009, the consortium plans to highlight the issue of representation, exploring how the design process can incorporate the use of models to represent an end-product. DKAD plans to invite researchers from other countries to visit Denmark to provide qualified input for the discussion about the role of representations in the design process. Henrik Oxvig explains,
“The representation often precedes that which it represents. This means that designers and architects work with pre-forms, and thus the ability to reflect on and grasp the importance of representations becomes crucial. It’s also a good research topic, well suited for a dialogue with the design education programmes, for example as part of establishing a research base for the programmes.”

DKAD logo: Konstantyner Communication & Design
Illustration: Anne Katrine Gelting