The Danish Centre for Design Research
The Danish Centre for Design Research (DCDR) aims to strengthen and involve design and design research in all the major challenges that Denmark faces through collaboration and bridging activities between universities, industry, the public sector and civic society.
Danish Centre for Design Research
Denmark has a strong cultural heritage of craft and design, creating world-famous artifacts and architecture that enhance everyday life. This tradition is driven by a deep social obligation to improve life for the many. Danish design has always taken on many aesthetic forms while working from moral and social imperatives. With the advent of computers, Danish design researchers, in collaboration with our Scandinavian neighbors, developed design methods and theories for participatory design, where unions and workers became directly involved in designing the IT systems for their work practices.
Design Research has the capacity to both frame problems in new ways and develop innovative solutions crucial for the widespread relevance of novel technologies, foster sustainable ways of living, and support climate resilience. This has inspired us to join forces and collaboratively establish the Danish Centre for Design Research to accelerate the impact of design research in Denmark.
Design research is a research genre combining the social sciences, humanities, and engineering. It has developed a wide array of methods and techniques to both draw out people's diverse concerns related to everyday living in the small and understand dilemmas and controversies of the world in a new light. Beyond this articulation of problems, design research creates concrete proposals for and materializations of alternative possible futures. Design research is essential when aiming at rethinking and solving the challenges Denmark and the world face, such as climate change, large IT systems, increasing social insecurity, unsustainable manufacturing, architecture, and transformations in the care and healthcare sectors.
Today, design research is conducted at all universities in Denmark, covering areas as diverse as IT, climate, care and healthcare, production, urban design, architecture, and agriculture.
The Danish Centre for Design Research aims to:
- Be a strong national voice in an international forum—build a brand for Danish design research
- Strengthen collaborations with other research institutions nationally and internationally, as well as build networks and consortia within design research.
- Organize professional seminars, conferences, dialogue meetings, and similar events.
- Support public dissemination of design research
- Serve as a voice for design research in public debate
- Advocate for design research within Denmark
- Help researchers scale projects for public impact, innovation, and policymaking
- Promote design research funding applications
- Seek external funding for the centre's activities
- Scale research across Denmark in a nimble way
- Serve as a trusted partner in international design research funding applications.