Docs4Design

Erasmus+ Project (2021-2023)

The Erasmus+ project DoCS4Design (2021-2023) is a collaboration of the PhD educators in Design at TU Delft, Politecnico di Milano, Aalto University, Imperial College London, together with IIT Institute of Design in Chicago and Carnegie Mellon in the USA.

The project focuses on mapping out the diversity of PhD education practices at these partner institutions and explores synergetic solutions.


Even though we do not represent the full diversity of PhD in Design (we are six established programmes with a longer history, all situated in a technology-related university in Europe and the USA), the variety in our practices can be informative for others as well.  

In the project we addressed the needs of PhD candidates, PhD advisers, and PhD organisers. On this website you will find the results that we as a team developed to help us (and you)  understand our PhD in Design programmes, projects, and people; as well as a brochure that provides a quick review of the highlights.

On this site we offer 4 tools to understand the practices and words that are used, to position one’s own research between the work of others, and to consider future skills and career paths. The 8 reports and 5 training reports provide background research and training materials from the workshops on competencies that were organised by the consortium.

Partner Universities