Thomas Fischer

School of Design, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China

Design PhD research commonly faces conflicting criteria between doing justice to designing (from, systemically speaking, subjective inside perspectives) and doing justice to academic research (subject, systemically speaking, to scrutiny by objective outside criteria). The theory of inquiry presented here takes a cybernetic approach to distinguish different concerns and criteria of design research with reference to applicable systemic boundaries. It aims to facilitate the understanding of and to offer provide strategic risk management guidance for design research inquiries in the presence of conflicts between these concerns and criteria.

KEYWORDS: epistemology, cybernetics, design PhD, research, science, design

Citation Data

Author(s): Thomas Fischer
Year: 2022
Title: A Theory for Enquiry in Design PhD Research
Published in: Proceedings of Relating Systems Thinking and Design
Volume: RSD11
Article No.: 086
URL: https://rsdsymposium.org/a-theory-for-enquiry-in-design-phd-research
Host: University of Brighton
Location: Brighton, UK
Symposium Dates: October 3–16, 2022
First published: 23 September 2022
Last update: 30 April 2023
Publisher Identification: ISSN 2371-8404

Copyright Information

Proceedings of Relating Systems Thinking and Design (ISSN 2371-8404) are published annually by the Systemic Design Association, a non-profit scholarly association leading the research and practice of design for complex systems: 3803 Tønsberg, Norway (922 275 696).

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Open Access article published under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International License. This permits anyone to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or form according to the licence terms.

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Author(s). (20##). Article title. Proceedings of Relating Systems Thinking and Design, RSD##. Article ##. rsdsymposium.org/LINK

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