The Design Society is an international non-governmental, non-profit organisation with a focus on engineering design. The Design Society is a charitable body, registered in Scotland under the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator, number SC 031694. The Design Society’s flagship event is the biennial International Conference in Engineering Design (ICED).
The Design Society was founded in 2000 building on the previous activities of the Workshop Design Konstruktion (WDK) group, especially the organisation of the ICED series of conferences held since 1981. The WDK group was an informally constituted international association based on a common interest in engineering design and founded in the early 1980s on the inspiration of Professors Vladimir Hubka, Mogens Myrup Andreasen, and Umberto Pighini.
The Design Society took over activities and responsibilities of WDK in 2001. The Design Society was constituted as a Charity under Scottish law and was incorporated as a Company Limited by Guarantee and Not Having a Share Capital under UK law (Companies Act, 2006).
Membership in The Design Society is open to persons with recognised design qualifications and experience in the fields of design research, design practice, design management, and design education. The Society is governed by a Board of Management. The Board of Management comprises five members of the Society elected democratically by the Society’s members at General Meetings, and officers include including the President, Vice President and Secretary.
The Design Society also has an Advisory Board that advises, guides and supports the Board of Management (BM) in developing and furthering the objectives of the Society. The Advisory Boards’ members are elected democratically by the Society’s Members at General Meetings, which take place every two years during the ICED conferences.
The current serving officers (2017-2019) are Tim C. McAloone (President), Georges Fadel (Vice-President & Treasurer), Kristin Paetzold (Secretary), Gaetano Cascini (BM Member), Claudia Eckert, Panos Y. Papalambros (ex-officio BM member), and Alex Duffy (Advisory Board Chair).
The Design Society host, co-own and endorse a number of events:
ICED is the Biennial Flagship event owned and organised by The Design Society. Papers are published by the Design Society and indexed in Web of Science and Scopus. The conference attracts a wide background of attendees across academia, industry and governance with an interest in engineering design.
The Design Education Special Interest Group (DESIG) of the Design Society and the Institution of Engineering Designers (IED) and a host University collaborate on the organisation of the conference (University host listed in table below by year) co-owned by The Design Society. The conference is a forum to discuss current design educational issues and the nature of design education.
Promoted by the Design Creativity Special Interest group of the Design Society to discuss latest findings in the nature and potential of design creativity. The event is co-owned by The Design Society. Selected papers of the ICDC Conference are published after extension and further review in the International Journal of Design Creativity and Innovation.
Origanised by the University of Zagreb, with a Programme Committee from the Design Society, the DESIGN conference is a biennial conference that is endorsed by the Design Society. The objective of the DESIGN Conference series is to be integrative across the various design science disciplines, covering current state-of-the-art regarding the multidisciplinary aspects of design.
Is an endorsed event targeted at younger members with an interest in product development.
Is an endorsed event which attracts those with an interest in DSM and tools to support.
A biennial event in India this conference attracts a wide range of engineering design interests. This event is endorsed by The Design Society.
A bi-annual Nordic conference on engineering design endorsed by The Design Society.
Product Development Symposium is an endorsed event of The Design Society aimed at an industry audience.
The Design Society, in collaboration with Cambridge University Press, publishes the journal Design Science. The journal welcomes possible collaboration. The published articles are on the topics listed below and open access (published under a Creative Commons licence).
The topics addressed by the Design Society community are discussed in the following journals:
The Design Society’s members are actively engaged in a wide range of design topics, as reflected in its Special Interests Groups (SIGs) and its conference publications. These include the topics below (highlighted for ICED 2019 in Delft, Netherlands):
