Establish national grants for basic design research.
Design Research is an internationally recognizable field with learned societies and journals, yet no U.S. government granting body supports basic design research. The National Endowment for the Arts provides grants for Artistic Excellence in Design. While NEA grants encompass the support of design processes, they do not support basic design research. The National Science Foundation and National Endowment for the Arts do not fund design at all.
Over the past 50 years, design has developed as a coherent discipline of study with its own history, methodologies, and “ways of knowing”. Basic research into the processes of designing takes three forms: (1) the traditional investigations of design history and aesthetics, (2) the more experimental study of materials, technologies, and approaches that generate new design processes; and (3) the explorations of the created objects and systems that impact culture, society, and the environment.
The support of basic design research will lead to innovations that increase the U.S.’s leadership in knowledge and intellectual property.
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