Designing by practice: a new professional doctorate in design

The development of professional doctorates in Australia and elsewhere is relatively new, dating from the 1990s (Maxwell, 2003). Searches of literature that critique, guide and analyse the impact of professional doctorates have not looked at the discipline of design. This may well be as a result of the relatively new arrival on the Higher Education scene of the Professional Doctorate in Design. As with other theorists (Hoddell, Street, & Wildblood, 2002) members of the Faculty of Design, Swinburne University of Technology identified the need to focus on the practice and skills that were unique to practitioners of design. In response to this need the Professional Doctorate of Design (DDes) was accredited in 1999, the first intake of students was in 2001 and 2004 has seen the first submission for examination from the program. In this paper, we reflect on that program and position it as a catalyst for the continuing development of project-based research and the act of designing as a scholarly research methodology.