Interdisciplinarity, design thinking & sustainable development: strategies for UK higher education

Project Aim

This research explored interdisciplinarity in design education for sustainable development. It assessed the scope and potential for cross-institutional co-ordination of design education for sustainability in Wales while prototyping new models of interdisciplinary education driven by design thinking.

EDC’s Involvement

EDC collaborated with Jane Davison of Newport School of Art and Design to undertake the research. The main tasks included:

• An exploration of the literature (academic and grey) on interdisciplinarity as it relates to design education
• An exploration of international next-practice (alongside best-practice) in relation to interdisciplinarity and design education
• Dialogue on interdisciplinarity and sustainability between educators across a range of design and non-design disciplines and practitioners of design
• An elaboration on possible educational and policy frameworks for enabling interdisciplinarity in design education for sustainable development

Key Project Outcomes

The project:

• Initiated dialogue with design educators from leading design courses across Europe and the US
• Gained insights from leading design thinkers
• Ran a regional cross-institutional workshop in Wales
• Produced a report for the Higher Education Academy
• Ran a workshop at an international conference about education for sustainable development