Investigating the Next Generation of Design Researchers

This paper explores the opportunities, challenges and needs of the next generation of design researchers (NGDRs) in the United Kingdom. As part of the first author’s ongoing Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Design Leadership Fellowship, the paper reports on a series of ten NGDR workshops held across the UK, which explored the processes involved in developing, writing, and applying for an AHRC grant. The paper presents feedback from the NGDR workshop participants, who contributed to furthering our understanding of what research areas they are interested in investigating, what research-related issues they need support with, and what research opportunities they envisage for the future. Over 800 next generation design researchers attended the NGDR workshops across the UK. This paper reports on feedback from almost 200 NGDR workshop participants who articulate the highly collaborative, innovative and impactful design research they wish to undertake in the future.