The REDE#02 event aimed to revisit some questions raised during the first meeting of design schools, and emphasise the relationship between schools and companies. The second part of the event focused on the presentation of the DesignOBS project – on the exhibition and discussion of some results obtained to date, namely, on the topic of design doctorates in Portugal. Each of these sessions was accompanied by a discussion with representatives of BA Glass and Larus company, with representatives of invited schools, also including the director of the Danish Design Center and the Danish Design Award, Christina Melander and Fernando Rocha vice-president of the City Council of Matosinhos. In addition to the topic of the meeting, the discussion revisited important and timeless issues discussed in REDE#01 and covered others related to: 1. Design and ethics; 2. Design research; 3. Design skills; 4. Strategic vision for design and culture. The afternoon focused primarily on the presentation of the DesignOBS project “For a Design Observatory in Portugal”. The mission, objectives and expected results of the project, as well as the main outputs of an analytical study related to PhDs in design undertaken in Portugal were also discussed, demonstrating how the use of numerical information can better inform the definition of strategies for the discipline and support the development of public policies. The discussion was important to collect feedback from participants regarding the study and the observation model. The content analysis of the discussion resulted in four points: (1) proposals for future studies for DesignOBS, (2) organisational structure, (3) expectations regarding the observatory’s function and (4) observation model.
Please cite this report as: Silva, A. C., Branco V., Costa R., Costa N., Borges A., Cunca R., Modesto A., Silva A.C., (2019) REDE#02 – Reunião de Escolas de Design (National Design Schools Meeting), Instituto Politécnico do Cávado e do Ave, Barcelos, October 2019, https://ria.ua.pt/handle/10773/33236
