Sustainable Design Research
“How does Sustainable Design Research look like today?
– Industrial Design Department of TU Delft compared to other Universities’ Departments.”
Employment for Industrial Design Department of TU Delft
Supervisor: Yumiko Henneberry
Duration: 35 days
Sustainable design – Design research
It has been said that IDE is one of the larger design institutions with respect to sustainability research. However, there isn’t a formal comparative analysis conducted from our faculty. The program coordinator of sustainability in IDE, Yumiko Henneberry hired me to gather information and perform an analysis which will support decisions regarding resource allocation for knowledge development and for valorization purposes, as well as for identifying institutions to form partnerships.
Research Topics investigated in the Industrial Design Department (IDE) at Delft University of Technology (TUD)
The sustainability research conducted in IDE includes a variety of topics: circular economy, energy transition, sustainable healthcare, urban sustainability and sustainable behaviour. Circular economy alone is further divided to 6 sub-topics. Each of these sub-topics is supported by a number of researchers. Similar type of analysis is performed for the other institutions too.
Circular Economy in IDE
This section elaborates on the research process that is followed to identify and quantify sustainable design research in other institutions.
Global University Selection
The measures for selecting universities are two. Either prominent collaborators of IDE – identified through co-authorships, or established design universities – identified through world rankings. In this map one can see the global distribution of the 10 selected universities.
Insights
The research proved IDE to be a leader in sustainable design research amongst the other universities. One of IDE’s strongest assets are its variety in sustainability research topics and uniqueness in some of them, making the faculty vital for its collaborators. In future research, a larger range of universities is suggested, along with some interviews with the staff of the universities, as this project is limited to desk research.
