Design is a professional discipline, which is to say that design academia is linked to a family of design professions, and needs to be sensitized to the norms, practices, values and trends of these professions. Even while preparing students with the skills and knowledge to perform as design professionals in this industry, design schools also must imbue students with the curiosity, social and cultural awareness and critical attitude to question and transform the conventions and assumptions of these professions through their practice. DesignEd Asia plays an important role in providing contexts for the testing of radical propositions, the gestation of transformative strategies and the nurturing of speculative approaches that spur and inform the continuing evolution of the professional practice of design.

We are seeking papers that propose positions on the relationship between design academia and the design professions, and demonstrate how these positions are actualized in actual pedagogical practice and initiatives within schools of design. In the selection of papers, we aim to achieve a cross-section of the ways in which positions and approaches vary between different national or regional cultures, and between design schools with different histories and pedagogical philosophies.

We invite papers addressing the following areas:

• facilitating the transition between academia and industry, including the incubation of student entrepreneurs and support for commercialization, production and marketing of student projects and ideas

• educating for change, including curricular and pedagogical approaches that reflect and anticipate changes in the parameters of the design professions, as well as approaches to providing students with the skills and knowledge to pro-actively drive change in the design professions

• design education beyond the design professions, including the rationale, goals and challenges of teaching design to students in non-design professions, as well as preparing design students to enter into professional contexts outside of the traditional design disciplines

• dissemination and impact, including examples of successful dialogues between design academia and the design professions that have led to positive impact on some aspects of professional practice

Abstract Submission Due: 31 July, 2011

Abstract Review and Notification: 29 August, 2011