Design Principles & Practices Research Network

Exploring the foundations, methods, and social contexts of design.

The Design Principles & Practices Research Network brings together a global community of scholars, practitioners, educators, and researchers exploring the meaning, purpose, and transformative potential of design. Member-based and scholar-led, the Network bridges creative practice, critical theory, and professional application across disciplines.

Founded in 2007, the Design Principles & Practices Research Network launched with its inaugural conference at Imperial College London. Since then, the Network has grown into a global community of scholars, practitioners, educators, and researchers exploring the foundations, methods, and social contexts of design.

From its early meetings in London, the conference has traveled across the world—to the University of Miami (USA), Technical University Berlin (Germany), University of Illinois at Chicago (USA), Sapienza University of Rome (Italy), University of California, Los Angeles (USA), Chiba University (Japan), UBC Robson Square (Canada), Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), the Institute without Boundaries at George Brown College (Canada), ELISAVA Barcelona School of Design and Engineering (Spain), St. Petersburg University (Russia), Pratt Institute (USA), Universidad de Monterrey (Mexico), University of Newcastle (Australia), Polytechnic Institute of Lisbon (Portugal), Universitat Politècnica de València (Spain), and LASALLE College of the Arts (Singapore). Each host institution has contributed distinct perspectives on design thinking, education, and research, shaping an increasingly international and multidisciplinary discourse.

Founding Chair Daria Loi (2007–2008) established the Network’s ethos of participatory design, positioning design as a mode of inquiry grounded in human experience and community practice. Since 2008, Lorenzo Imbesi and Loredana Di Lucchio have served as Chairs and Editors of the Network. Their combined leadership has shaped the Network into a central international hub for critical, practice-informed, and socially engaged design research.

Throughout its history, the Network has welcomed influential voices shaping contemporary design culture and practice. Plenary speakers have included Ezio Manzini, Sol Sender, Christian Guellerin, Banny Banerjee, Lev Manovich, Philip Beesley, Yoichiro Kawaguchi, and Lorraine Justice, among others—each contributing perspectives that situate design as a transformative force across social, ecological, technological, and cultural domains.

The Network’s scholarly ecosystem is anchored by an extensive journal collection, including Design Principles and Practices: An International Journal—Annual Review (Gold Open Access), The International Journal of Designed Objects, The International Journal of Design Education, The International Journal of Design in Society, The International Journal of Design Management and Professional Practice, and The International Journal of Visual Design. Together, these journals examine materiality, pedagogy, collaboration, visual communication, social design, organizational models, and the evolving role of design in society. The Network also recognizes outstanding research through its annual International Award for Excellence, selected from the highest-rated peer-reviewed articles in the journal collection. Award-winning work reflects the field’s diversity, covering topics such as design intelligence systems, play-based design for children, motion design pedagogy, new media experimentation, citizen-driven placemaking, and the social impacts of collaborative design practice.

Complementing the journals, the Design Principles & Practices Book Imprint provides a platform for long-form and practice-based scholarship, with works spanning social innovation, sustainability, collective intelligence, computational design, design theory, and design pedagogy—reflecting the breadth of inquiry across the Network’s global community.

Today, the Design Principles & Practices Research Network continues to expand as a global meeting point for scholars, practitioners, and educators committed to understanding design’s meaning, purpose, and transformative potential—advancing design as both a critical lens and a practical tool for imagining and shaping more sustainable, inclusive, and creative futures.

• 2007 - Sustainable Everyday, Imperial College, London, UK
• 2008 - Purpose of Design, University of Miami, Miami USA
• 2009 - Design as Rhetoric, Technical University Berlin, Berlin, Germany
• 2010 - Discovering Design, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, USA
• 2011 - Designing Today, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy
• 2012 - Designing Social Practice, University of California, Los Angeles, USA
• 2013 - People and Practice, Chiba University, Chiba, Japan
• 2014 - Design as Collective Intelligence, UBC Robson Square in Vancouver, Canada
• 2015 - Industrial—Post-industrial—Neo-industrial Design, University Center Chicago, Chicago USA
• 2016 - Design Transforming Society, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
• 2017 - Design for the Global Village, Institute without Boundaries at George Brown College, Toronto, Canada
• 2018 - No Boundaries Design, ELISAVA Barcelona School of Design and Engineering, Barcelona, Spain
• 2019 - Design + Context, St. Petersburg University, Saint Petersburg, Russia
• 2020 - Advocacy in Design: Engagement, Commitment, and Action, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, USA (Virtual)
• 2021 - Towards a (Design) New Deal, Universidad de Monterrey, Mexico (Virtual)
  
• 2022 - Back to Life: Seeking Vision and Purpose in Principles and Practice, University of Newcastle, Newcastle, Australia (Virtual)
  
• 2023 - New Agendas for Design: Principles of Scale, Practices of Inclusion, Polytechnic Institute of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal
• 2024 - Cultures of Transformative Design, Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain
  
• 2025 - Thinking, Learning, Doing: Plural Ways of Design, LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore