Course content

This course offers the possibility for PhD students to follow a customised Design for Sustainability course at ID. PD8301 is meant for those PhD students interested in doing a customised project. the content of the project is open for discussion in advance of acceptance into the course. Generally this will involve some individual discussion and tutoring, to arrive at a project description which is of mutual interest, to the PhD student and to the department, in particular the research agenda of the design for sustainability research group. This project is preferably in the form of a piece of original research or an extensive literature review, resulting in a paper that can be submitted for publication. Throughout the research, supervision in the form of discussion meetings is offered.

Learning outcome

Knowledge:

The candidate

• will obtain a thorough theoretical understanding of the chosen topic, and an overview of the state-of-the-art research related to this.
• will have gained knowledge as a result of qualitative and/or quantitative data collection, in the form of experiments, surveys or any other user-centred design methods relevant for the project
• can position the candidate's own doctoral research field in the context of relevant scientific literature on Design for Sustainability

Skills:

The candidate

• has gained experience with scoping, discussing and formulating research questions in the context of Design for Sustainability
• is able to select, read, process and write relevant literature.

General qualifications:

The candidate

• has gained experience with doing a minor theoretical and/or practical research project that will support the overall doctoral project.
• has gained experience with scientific article writing

Learning methods and activities

The learning activities are dependent on the number of course participants and their selected topic. Activities will include both the literature review, research activities, article writing, colloquium with the other students depending on the number of students that take the course, and discussion with the supervisor and/or other relevant subject teachers. A presentation may eventually be required by agreement. The organization of the course is dependent on the number of students and will be discussed at the start of the project.

Required previous knowledge

Students have to be PhD students with a doctoral research theme related to Design for Sustainability. Students from other PhD study programs than PHDESIG may apply for enrollment before semester start, preferably well in advance. Depending on available supervision capacity and suitability of the theme they may be allowed to enroll in the course.

Course materials

Identification and reading of relevant literature is part of the course activities, and will be agreed upon in dialogue with the supervisor, depending on the topic of the project.

Credit reductions