ABSTRACT
Despite great progress in the last five decades, Design Research still reveals fragilities in comparison with other academic fields. To avoid stagnation and lack of impact, it needs to strengthen its theoretical and methodological foundations. Following previous work aiming to contribute to Design Research consolidation, we propose in this paper a Map where four categories of Design Research are positioned in relation to territories of Design Research, Education and Practice. The Map also supports the examination of those four Design Research categories based on a four-layer analysis resulting from the conference title keywords: Processes, Philosophy, People and Products. The Map intends to help design researchers, especially inexperienced ones, like PhD students, to visualise where their own research is located within the Design universe and, by that, understand the ontological, epistemological and methodological implications.
