Research in Design at Goldsmiths

Research at Goldsmiths Department of Design is internationally renowned for its inventive, experimental and critical engagement with social and cultural life and the role of designers and design therein. We have enjoyed a long history of redefining the discipline of design and how design studies combine with practice-led research-through-design.

Our staff members have and continue to play foundational and agenda setting roles in the development of design research, demarcating new fields of design practice and theory, pursuing methodological innovation as well as interdisciplinary engagements across the arts, humanities, sciences and social sciences. In so doing, our staff have gained international recognition for being pioneers in fields such as design education and pedagogy, metadesign, human-computer interaction design, speculative and critical design, sustainability and the environment as well as the intersection between design, science and technology studies and social theory.

The research practices in the department are variously marked by their ongoing commitment to forms of social and political engagement and the radical rethinking of design as a key mediator in contemporary issues.

The Department of Design is embedded in the unique intellectual milieu of Goldsmiths, which provides an inspiring and vibrant context for design research as well as opportunities to pursue interdisciplinary research that is responsive to pressing contemporary challenges, whether local, national, international or global.

The department actively contributes to the College’s excellence in research, supporting an overall increase in 4* ‘world-leading’ research for Art, Design and Visual Cultures in the 2021 Research Excellence Framework. To find out more about our departments' research interests and activities, please see our staff's individual pages.

Research in the department is organised around a number of research units and centres: