Eindhoven school for technological design : design education and design research

Nine years after starting the two-year post-graduate programme on technological design [Ackermans and Trum, 1988], Eindhoven University of Technology (EUT) decided to enhance the development of synthesis-oriented engineering education by establishing a post-graduate school for technological design. In the last decade the industrial, educational and public interest for technological design has grown remarkably. Nowadays, it is considered essential for the international market position of the Netherlands. The post-graduate design programme has to set international standards, as this is the level on which Dutch industry has to compete. The design school shall contribute to attaining and holding the required level. The new school is an interdisciplinary cooperation of all eight faculties of EUT, in which the ten two-year full-time post-graduate design courses of the former Institute for Continuing Education IVO are accommodated with about 330 post-graduate students. Over 450 students already earned their designers’ certificate. One of the new tasks of the school is to establish a design research centre in which fields of knowledge, relevant for technological design, such as design philosophy and methodology, design instrumentation and design learning and teaching, will be elaborated. The main new task of the school is to stimulate young designers—working on a design task in close cooperation with industry—to earn a doctorate (Ph.D.) by devising and defending a doctoral design