In Europe, Design Centers and Associations are considered as key infrastructures to efficiently promote and represent the discipline. However, in some countries with a lower maturation of Design culture – such as the case of Portugal there are no official actors fully dedicated to these activities. Previous research indicated Design schools as a potential alternative infrastructure to promote and represent Design, but further research is needed to understand what they can learn/adapt from the activities currently undertaken by Centers and Associations. This paper maps the European landscape looking in particular at BEDA (Bureaux of European Design Association) members. Based on these insights and recent infrastructuring literature, it develops adapted strategies for observation activities to test with Design schools in the Portuguese territory. The results obtained are a first step to bring countries with lower maturation of design culture under the EU Design Ecosystem radar.

e capacitar jovens designers na interpretação e representação de dados.Durante um semestre, os alunos categorizaram, curaram, densificaram e mapearam a

The production of data about design is important to create new knowledge about the discipline and support the development of better public policies. In Portugal, the DesignOBS project is developing these tasks, gathering information about the ecosystem. Databases are very important instruments to understand the discipline to systematically innovate. In this paper, we want to go further and address its literacy. Starting from the assumption that design is an activity of cultural mediation, its role in data interpretation could promote more participatory discussions about the discipline, and ultimately enrich the ecosystem; but data literacy in design is still at its infancy. To address this challenge, the present paper describes a hands-on approach to infuse data literacy in an educational design context, to support novice designers navigating a database about design companies. The study adopts a longitudinal case study approach and follows fifteen students from a design master course during the period of one semester. This research is an additional step for the maturation of the process to develop a design observatory in Portugal. It resulted in a set of data-focused infographics about design companies, richer datasets and levered the transformation of the student’s perception of their potential role in the context of data. This study contributes to ongoing discussions at the intersection of data literacy and design, still in an early stage. Moreover, it advances design research by reflecting on the value of adopting designerly approaches to create new materials, diffuse information about the design ecosystem and promote more participatory reflections about the discipline.

The present study undertaken within the DesignOBS project is based on 172 PhD theses in Design submitted to the Portuguese National Design Schools between 2005 and 2019. It focuses in particular on the extraction and analysis of 522 PhD citations appended to design doctoral work. The analysis is used to observe school impact, explore the weight of previous design focused and non-design doctoral work to develop PhD research in design in the country. The results reveal few connections between doctorates and few overlaps in-between as well as outside design schools; thus, indicating poor continuity and reproducibility of domestic doctoral work, little tradition of PhD citation, and an important weight of non-design schools. A network-based visualization of the connections between PhDs in design within PhD thesis, by use of a citation analysis method, enabled to draw reflections on the status of domestic doctoral research in Portugal and provides an empirical approach to explore the reproducibility of this type of research which may be used in other countries.

AbstractThe DesignOBS project was created to collect, map and interpret data about the Portuguese Design Ecosystem, providing supportive information for decision making. This study takes advantage of a participative Design perspective to define and test an observation process via a case based on Design doctorates undertaken in Portugal. It emphasises the need for additional participatory analysis and curation by experts to evaluate and develop more reliable information about the discipline. Moreover, it develops recommendations that can enhance the communicability of Design doctorates.

This database contains metadata about Design doctorate theses undertaken in Portugal; This work is a result of the project Design Obs. Para um Observatório de Design em Portugal: Modelos, Instrumentos, Representação e Estratégias, (Towards a design Observatory in Portugal: models, instruments representation and strategies) supported by Lisbon Regional Operational Programme (LISBOA 2020) and the Competitiveness and Internationalisation Operational Programme (POCI-01- 0145-FEDER-032445), under the PORTUGAL 2020 Partnership Agreement, through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (Foundation for Science and Technology). For additional information about the development of the database see Costa, N.; Branco, V.; Costa, R.; Borges, A.; Modesto, A.; Cunca, R.; Silva, A. (2020), Towards a Design Observatory: Characterising scholarly Design Research in Portugal, Design20, 18-21 May, Dubrovnik, Croatia.

A look at the international reference courses in the field of industrial design seems to reveal a significant concentration in developed regions with a high industrial and solid creative development, most usually in large cities, invigorated by a thriving business and supported in a dynamic cultural scene. This starting point implies the question of whether this context is mandatory or decisive to the existence of healthy higher education in industrial design. This article seeks to present, explain and analyze an industrial design university program in an interior, non-industrial region, with a fragile economy and an aged population, trying to debate scientific, pedagogical and university extension features, namely community relations, course strategy, so this program can provide quality learning for future industrial designers in the global context, but at the same time promote the resilience and development of the region. This paper aims to question, discuss and help answer these doubts, using as a case study the 1st and 2nd cycle courses in industrial design, promoted at the University of Beira Interior, located in Covilh

This paper seeks to analyze and discuss a redesign project developed by students of master’s degree in industrial design. Based on the book The Hard Life, from English designer Jasper Morrison, the briefing proposed the development of concepts for new products inspired by the selection of objects in the book, and respective written interpretations. It seeks to explore the dialogue between the original objects – their use, Morrison’s interpretation - and the reinterpretation made by the students considering the current material culture. Accompanied and coordinated with Bisarro, contemporary studio dedicated to the artisan production of small series in Bisalhães black clay, UNESCO Immaterial Cultural Heritage, the project seeks to explore the boundaries and common ground between memory and contemporary times. More than the results, it is intended to discuss proposals and approaches, from functional interpretations, formal inspiration, to the appropriation of affordance and gesture.