Design
Interactions
Research

The European Commission is the EU's executive body. It represents and upholds the interests of Europe as a whole. It drafts proposals for new European laws. It manages the day-to-day business of implementing EU policies and spending EU funds. The Commission also makes sure that everyone abides by the European treaties and laws.

Socio-Digital Systems (SDS)

Microsoft Research's Socio-Digital Systems (SDS) group aims to use an understanding of human values to help to change the technological landscape in the twenty first century. Beyond making us all more productive and efficient, they ask how we can build technology to help us be more expressive, creative, and reflective in our daily lives.

We are working together on two projects. A research fellowship exploring cross overs between design and social science research approaches, values and methods, and a PhD project exploring domestic robots.

Intel Labs, People and Practices Research (PaPR)

People and Practices Research has been a part of Intel for over 10 years. It is a research and innovation group. Its programs explore fundamental paradigms and phenomena of everyday life to help Intel think critically about how people, practices, and institutions matter to technological innovation and to conceive of provocative experiences in the future.

We regularly collaborate with PaPR, they funded our first research fellow and several MA projects exploring topics such as the smart street, the future of money and domestic robots.

The EPSRC is the main UK government agency for funding research and training in engineering and the physical sciences, investing more than £850 million a year. It supports research into engineering, mathematics, physics, chemistry, materials science, information and communications technologies. EPSRC is a non-departmental public body funded by the UK government through the Department for Universities, Innovation and Skills.

The department worked with the EPSRC during 2009-10 developing 16 design projects with scientists researching topics spanning renewable energy devices and security technologies to the emerging fields of synthetic biology and quantum computing. The project culminated in the EPSRC IMPACT! exhibition in March 2010.

The Wellcome Trust is a global charity dedicated to achieving extraordinary improvements in human and animal health. It supports the brightest minds in biomedical research and the medical humanities. Its breadth of support includes public engagement, education and the application of research to improve health. It is independent of both political and commercial interests.

The Wellcome trust funded a research associate to work on a project exploring genetic heirlooms during 2009-10.

The department also exhibited projects by students, staff and graduates in their HQ windows on Euston Road throughout 2010. 

The Science Gallery is a world first. A new type of venue where today's white-hot scientific issues are thrashed out and people can have their say. A place where ideas meet and opinions collide.

We collaborated with the Science Gallery on What If... exploring ways to exhibit and present 30 DI projects exploring interconnections between science, design and futures. We are also working together on the EU funded StudioLab project.

NESTA is the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts - an independent body with a mission to make the UK more innovative.

NESTA partly funded the EPSRC Impact! project.

The Tussauds Studios (now part of Merlin Entertainment) sponsored a research fellowship between 2006-07. Over 18 months Onkar Kular researched, edited and archived examples of themed places, impersonators,re-encatments, new forms of mediated entertainment and related consumer products. The research led to proposals for four public events and to the publication Accept No Other Imitations in 2010.