DRS LearnXdesign 2019 5th International Conference for Design Education Researchers

The LearnXdesign is a conference series by DRS Special Interest Group in Design Pedagogy (PedSIG), cultivating symbiotic exchanges between design education and design research. The first symposium in the series was held in Paris in 2011 and covered a small number of invited presentations mainly by British and continental European researchers. The Oslo 2013 and Chicago 2015 conferences were embraced by the design education research community at large and involved an impressive number of contributions across design disciplines and educational levels representing diverse traditions in research and education. And finally, the fourth conference was hosted by Ravensbourne University London in 2017.

The Fifth International Conference for Design Education Researchers will be hosted by Middle East Technical University (METU) Department of Industrial Design between 9-12 July 2019. We are truly excited to invite you all to our Ankara campus characterized by its unique natural and built environment as well as by its egalitarian culture and open intellectual milieu. Despite Turkey’s becoming an uneasy passage from multiple conflict zones to tightened EU borders, our department will have quite a few occasions to celebrate in the coming year. The year 2019 marks the 50th anniversary of the first course on industrial design offered in Turkey, at METU Faculty of Architecture by the American industrial designer David K. Munro. The same year we will also be celebrating the 40th anniversary of the establishment of our department as a separate academic unit at METU. We feel that design education matters more than ever!

The theme for the DRS Learn X Design 2019 is Insider Knowledge. We are happy to announce that the conference has 18 tracks, fifteen of which are chaired, and three are open.