Discovery and Creation: Explaining Collaboration Between Designers and Scientists in Scientific Research

This paper examines the role of product/industrial design in scientific research. It reports the results of three case studies in which designers and scientist collaborated and describes the projects’ background, the scientists’ design requirements and the design team approach. The paper further reflects on the designers’ contribution to research, and on those aspects that can act as a barrier or as a facilitator in designers and scientists’ collaborative endeavour. The paper identifies relevant questions and areas of enquiry for further research on the subject. This paper pioneers empirical research on the subject, and has been first output of the EPSRC funded project: Design in Science, at the Institute for Manufacturing, University of Cambridge. The paper is available to the public in the web page bellow