Research Through Design conference series

Timeframe: 2013-

Research Through Design (RTD) is an experimental conference that supports the dissemination of practice-based design research. RTD welcomes submissions from all areas of design and comprises a curated exhibition of design research artefacts accompanied by round-table discussions in ‘Rooms of Interest’. With this format, RTD aims to present an alternative to the traditional conference presentation of papers in darkened auditoriums, and supports a more discursive, synergistic setting that places the presentation of designed artefacts at the heart of proceedings. It was established in 2013, partly as a response to a recognition that there is a huge lack of peer-reviewed conference series that emphasise practice research in the field of design, and that are welcoming to practitioners early in their research careers.

The conference was hosted by Northumbria University in 2013 (at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Arts in Gateshead), and has since been run in 2015 (Cambridge), 2017 (Edinburgh) and 2019 (Rotterdam and Delft).