ABSTRACT
A recurrent problem of third-level higher education (the PhD degree) is the issue of knowledge transfer from research to society. In design, the problem is aggravated because the PhD in design is a recent development, which means the design research community is still searching for (and, in some cases, testing) its methodologies. In this chapter, we present the results of an analysis based on a database of all PhD theses in design from the PhD programme at the University of Lisbon. The study focussed on establishing provisional levels that categorise doctoral theses according to how immediate their results could be applied by society. The results show that design theses vary in their context and scope of applicability of knowledge generation and transfer; these insights can help us establish what constitutes a relevant contribution to the knowledge of the discipline.
