Before you apply

Prerequisite

• Do get to know what a doctoral degree in design means
  • Davis (2008) International Journal of Design [ link ]
  • Meyer & Norman (2020) She Ji [ link ]
• Research topic you’re interested in from, or adjacent to, the following areas
  • Design for Sustainability
  • Living Labs
  • Design for Services
  • Briefing (designer-client communication)
  • Design Education for Sustainability
• Basic understanding about academic research
  • What knowledge is in academic terms
  • Literacy in the relevant fields and school of thoughts
• Design and management skills
  • Strong visual skills using the common digital tools (Adobe, Figma etc.)
  • Experience in book-making and physical prototyping in different scales
  • Project management and people skills to lead master’s and bachelor’s students in service and policy design projects

Only full-time doctoral study

New Design Studio accepts only full-time doctoral students. Most academic institutions around the globe offering doctoral studies are giving up the idea of part-time and/or remote doctoral study arrangements due to the high failure rate – students giving up their studies after one publication or produce low-quality PhD.

Plus, UNIST Design boasts a demanding hybrid learning environment where doctoral students are expected to work on practical design challenges from/with external partners and produce academic outputs from these projects concurrently. This cannot possibly achieved through a part-time and/or remote doctoral study arrangements.

One online consultation before applying

After having read this page carefully, a candidate is expected to have one – and only one for fairness – online session with the director from 30 to 45 minutes to ask questions. If you’re interested in pursuing doctoral study in New Design Studio, please contact Seungho Park-Lee with CV, research plan (2-5 pages max.) and portfolio and schedule a Zoom meeting.

While studying

Requirement for defense

• One top journal + one quality journal or top conference paper during 4 years
  • Examples of top journals
    • Design Studies
    • Design Issues
    • International Journal of Design
    • She Ji
    • CoDesign
    • Journal of Cleaner Production
  • Examples of quality journal or top conferences
    • Design Journal
    • Sustainability
    • Design Research Society conference (DRS)

You will become

• An researcher who can design an academic research and carry out the process and publish independently
• A hybrid practitioner–researcher who can direct design projects utilizing the knowledge published in academic outlets, as well as other sources

Salary during doctoral study

• Between 1,100,000 and 3,000,000 depending on the funding situation at any given semester (planned each six months)

After your defense