Practice-Led Research Review

http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/apply/research/sfi/ahrcsi/research_reviews.asp

Review Report
AHRC Research Review
Practice-Led Research in Art, Design and Architecture

Prof. Chris Rust
Prof. Judith Mottram
Prof. Jeremy Till

Version 2: November 2007

I have found the review very useful. It is a formal document which contains many issues that invite more systematic reflection and debates. Most of the issues are practical, such as lacking experienced doctoral supervisors (though not unknown, now is formally recognized), prospects for postdocs,etc are topics that must be addressed if the design research community is to continue to grow. Some of the issues are more theoretical, such as the 'nature of contribution' (of researh). It highlights the need (gap) that to meaningfully conduct practice-led research requires non practice-led research!?
It also has examples of interesting doctoral dissertations for us expecially candidates to examine.

There is one, not so small, difficulty that I have with the review though. The authors make reference to practice-led research in the professional and academic domain and in doctoral research. My difficulty is that the review says little about the differences among these. Certainly, we (should) hope that doctoral practice-led research is more significant than masters practice-led research or professional practice-led research?

Despite my question, it is really worthwhile to take a quick look at the report.