Area of investment and support

Design research

Design research supports projects that use design to address climate, sustainability and wider social and economic challenges. ARHC investment in this area is currently focused through the ‘Future Observatory: Design the Green Transition’ programme, bringing together researchers and partners to develop and test practical solutions.

• Partners involved: Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), Design Museum, Future Observatory

The scope and what we're doing

Design continues to be a strategic priority area for AHRC. This emphasised our commitment to enhanced partnership working with related organisations and bodies.

AHRC’s £59 million Future Observatory: Design the Green Transition programme is the largest publicly funded design research and innovation programme in the UK. Delivered in partnership with the Design Museum, Future Observatory brings together researchers, over 100 higher education institutions and 75 industry and local authority partners across the UK to translate the best design-led research into real-world benefits to support the UK’s transition to net zero and a green economy.

Across the life of the programme, there have been five main funding strands for Future Observatory: Design the Green Transition programme:

• six-year Future Observatory programme at the Design Museum
• four Green Transition Ecosystems
• 75 Design Exchange Partnerships
• 50 Design Accelerators
• 10 Design Generators

Each component of the programme will address distinct net zero themes or climate challenges facing the UK.

Why we're doing it

As evidenced by Valuing Design, AHRC’s collaborative scoping study conducted with the Design Council and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) in 2014, design research has much to contribute to the UK economy.

AHRC-funded design researchers are contributing meaningfully and impactfully to several issues. Through the Future Observatory: Design the Green Transition programme, we are currently focusing on climate change and net zero. Previously, we have also contributed to areas as varied as:

• antimicrobial resistance: the Dust Bunny project at Lancaster University
• migration: Architectures of Displacement at the University of Oxford
• healthy ageing: the LAUGH project at Cardiff Metropolitan University
• economic sustainability: Rethinking Fashion Design Entrepreneurship at University of the Arts London

It is in this collaborative context that the current and future programmes of funding opportunities are being formulated.

Opportunities, support and resources available

Standard (sometimes known as ‘responsive’) funding opportunities are open to a wide range of research and approaches within AHRC’s remit. They operate without formal deadlines, so proposals can be submitted at any time.

We’re keen to point out that theme-specific funding opportunities are not the extent of AHRC support for design research. We’re always happy to see design proposals come in via our standard funding opportunities:

• Curiosity awards
• Catalyst awards

Currently funded projects

View all active design projects funded by AHRC on Gateway to Research.

Through the Future Observatory: Design the Green Transition programme, we are funding projects through the following three programmes.

Design Accelerators

Design Accelerators are small-scale reactive projects that are designed to support engagement between design research and innovation (R&I) projects and diverse private, public and third sector organisations, local communities, and the general public. They:

• identify effective routes to commercialisation and adoption through targeted demonstration of high-quality design R&I
• promote green transition-supportive behaviour change
• highlight the value of academic design research in addressing real-world, locally relevant challenges arising along the journey to net zero and a green economy

Design Accelerators were offered as competitive awards to research organisations that hold AHRC impact acceleration accounts.

Design Exchange Partnerships

Design Exchange Partnerships (DEPs) are three-way collaborative projects that seek to demonstrate tangible impact on local communities, by stimulating the real-world application of high-quality arts and humanities-led research to address challenges related to achieving green transition goals. Each round of the DEPs is based around a specific theme.

DEPs aim to:

• stimulate strategic partnerships that support career development and the development of hybrid skills
• increase the diversity of voices and actors consulted in and contributing to addressing the climate crisis
• enable the development of new products and services that have a positive impact in the real world

Green Transition Ecosystems

Green Transition Ecosystems (GTEs) are large-scale projects that focus on translating the best design-led research into real-world benefits. Capitalising on clusters of design excellence, GTEs will address distinct challenges posed by the climate crisis, including but not limited to realising net zero goals.

Each GTE will identify the green transition challenges it is uniquely able to address, and develop a programme of R&I activity tailored to addressing them through high-quality, multidisciplinary and intersectoral design research.

GTEs aim to:

• empower the UK design research base to respond to regionally or sectorally significant green transition challenges in agile and collaborative ways
• embed circularity and sustainability across product, service, strategy and policy design in relation to the identified challenges
• contribute to increasing design gross value added in the nations and regions of the UK that have seen stagnation or decline
• realise measurable, green transition-supportive behaviour change across sectors and publics
• catalyse and foster opportunities for the socially, culturally and environmentally-acceptable commercialisation of design research-led interventions
• enable and support a greater diversity of voices and perspectives in the design of green transition-supportive interventions, including users and publics
• create opportunities to build capacity and capability in design research for green transition challenges

Design Generators

Design Generators will develop new arts and humanities-based approaches and methods to support:

• environmental sustainability
• decarbonisation
• circular economies
• policy design
• regenerative practices

Past projects, outcomes and impact

Design Exchange Partnerships pilot round

We funded 15 Design Exchange Partnerships in the 2021 to 2022 pilot round.

Overview of 15 Design Exchange Partnerships.

Design Accelerators round two

We funded nine Design Accelerators in round two of 2023 and 2024 funding.

Overview of nine design accelerators.

Green Transition Ecosystems

We funded four Green Transition Ecosystems from 2022 to 2025. This funding will continue until 2028.

Overview of four green transition ecosystems.

Next Generation Design

In January 2017, AHRC appointed Professor Paul Rodgers as our Priority Area Leadership Fellow for Design.

The aims of this fellowship were to:

• increase the quantity and quality of design-led research proposals
• strengthen the research capacity of the next generation of design researchers
• act as an ambassador for design research across all sectors of UK society
• use design research as a tool for delivering real and positive social change

Professor Rodgers has led a series of workshops and talks around the country entitled Next Generation Design. The workshops were aimed at early career design researchers and included presentations from:

• Professor Paul Rodgers
• AHRC award holders
• Harry Kerr previously in the AHRC design team
• host institutions’ research offices

The findings of this fellowship are being used to highlight a number of key roles that design has played in past projects, and how it can be used to great effect in a wide variety of future significant, complex global issues. Examples include health and wellbeing, economic growth, sustainable production and consumption, among others.

This work has highlighted that most design research projects synergistically create more than one type of value, generating an interesting mix of social, cultural, economic, and environmental value.

It has also identified research gaps for the design research community to focus on in future years.

The work has been instrumental in the development of the Future Observatory at the Design Museum.

Design Centres for Doctoral Training

AHRC doesn’t just fund postdoctoral research in design. We understand the importance of fostering talent as early as possible and, to that end, we have previously funded four design-focused Centres for Doctoral Training.

These are consortia that comprise research organisations throughout the country:

• The 3D3 Centre for Doctoral Training (Falmouth University, Plymouth University and the University of the West of England)
• London Doctoral Design Centre (the Royal College of Art, Kingston University and University of the Arts London)
• AHRC Northumbria-Sunderland Centre for Doctoral Training (Northumbria University, the University of Sunderland, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art and the National Glass Centre, Sunderland)
• Design Star (Brighton University, Goldsmiths, University of London, Loughborough University, the Open University and the University of Reading)

Who to contact

Ask a question about this area of investment

AHRC Design, Commercialisation and Innovation team

Email: ahrcdesignandinnovation@ahrc.ukri.org

We aim to respond within five working days.

Last updated: 24 March 2026