PhD in Industrial Design

Xi’an Jiaotong – Liverpool University (XJTLU) is a new international university jointly founded by Xi’an Jiaotong University China and the University of Liverpool UK as a joint venture. As an independent Sino-Foreign cooperative university, it captures the essence of both prestigious parent universities and is the first and only one of its kind approved by the Ministry of Education in China.

The University offers undergraduate degree programmes in the fields of science, engineering and management, and awards both its own Chinese degree and a degree from the University of Liverpool.

• IMPORTANT BEFORE SUBMITTING AN ONLINE APPLICATION: All PhD applicants are strongly encouraged to contact/identify a potential Supervisor and prepare a research proposal before submitting an online application.

Overview

• The PhD in Industrial Design is a strategic research collaboration between Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University and the University of Liverpool. Upon successful completion of your programme, you will receive a degree from the University of Liverpool, which is recognised by the UK Department of Education as well as China’s Ministry of Education.

• Students in this programme are formally registered with the University of Liverpool as off-site postgraduate research students. As a PhD student, you will have a designated principal supervisor at XJTLU who is a full-time academic staff member. In addition, you will have a designated co-supervisor based at the University of Liverpool.

• Pursuing a full-time PhD typically involves three years of conducting research and one year of writing a thesis, supported by subject-specific and general skills training and development. A full-time PhD student must submit their thesis within four years (or six years for part-time PhD students).

Why should I do my PhD in Industry Design at XJTLU?

Key benefits of this PhD program:

• • receipt of a range of professional skills to help you maximise your future employability;
• • guidance from supervisors through one of the most intellectually satisfying experiences of your life;
• • supervision from respected academics at both XJTLU and the University of Liverpool;
• • travel budget for participating in international conferences;
• • the chance to apply for a research visit to the University of Liverpool for three to six months;
• • opportunities to work as a teaching assistant and develop crucial academic skills.

Knowledge and skills:

• • independent research skills in industrial design;
• • contribution to new ideas, techniques or approaches in the field;
• • the ability to conceptualise new knowledge;
• • effective project management;
• • evaluation of the research impact and how to make full use of it;
• • co-operative networks with supervisors, colleagues, peers and the wider research community;
• • additional skills, including teaching, mentoring, public engagement, commercialisation of research, and leadership.

Career opportunities

• XJTLU is the first university in the Chinese mainland to have Industrial Design programmes officially accredited by the Chartered Society of Designers (CSD), an internationally recognised body for the design profession.

• Earning a PhD opens you to a wide array of career opportunities in academia, industry and professional practice. The PhD in Industrial Design at XJTLU is the ideal bridge to a research-focused career within the most prestigious research institutions. It can serve to settle your own practice-based, research-driven design business, or further develop your expertise in any academic institution worldwide.

Research areas

• The Labs reflect our Industrial Design professional knowledge and practice experience, alongside our teaching practice at undergraduate and postgraduate level, through to doctorate level research and commercial industry design practice. Our successful network of industry collaborators, partners and stakeholders, provide us with new proposals that evaluate academic knowledge within realistic funded research programmes. These initiatives position our research profile within a global framework of critical Industrial Design Research practice, where embryonic ideas and innovations can inspire valuable future prototypes into sustainable ecologies and environments.

• Our research activities are organized into three principal Research Labs, to align with leading international research: X+ Experience and Interaction Design, S+ Social Innovation and M+ Future Making and Manufacture. With a primary focus on human values, this innovative research practice develop how future communities and environments can be formed, within Chinese and International cultural contexts.
• The X+ Experience & Interaction Lab considers the extent to which artificial digital realities can serve to represent and improve human experience in the natural world.
• The S+ Social Innovation Lab builds community-based research experiences and social design workshops, where local industry can be involved within the design practice.
• The M+ Future Making & Manufacture Lab reaches from Craft hand skills making through to Digital Prototyping, where research ideas generated in collaboration with the X+ and S+ Labs, can be taken through to industry manufactured production. These three labs deliberately intend to challenge contemporary design paradigms, where social values collide with changes in technology, cultures and community, where innovations and ideas can be tested through realistic prototypes.

X+ Experience & Interaction Lab

• Over time, all societies develop, evolve and transform within a perpetual flow of information exchange and, as the world keeps on shifting, so do our needs and wants. Looking into interactions is to build understanding about our human experience through natural and artificial world. Understand how we communicate through perception, cognition, behavior and performance, and how to design, innovate, and to challenge existing behavior to improve new situations in everyday life

• The X+ research lab specializes in the different modes of interaction between people and the environment, through physical materials and digital applications and services. At its core, the lab aims to evaluate, question, and improve our daily experiences and transactions with the artificial world through the design and improvement of artefacts, tools, spaces, systems, or experiences, according to and within the cultural context they exist in.

Research lab Leaders: Nuno Bernardo, Dr. Mengjie Huang
Research lab members: Aven Le Zhou, Prof. Richard Appleby, Dr. Mariia Zolotova, Jia Liu

S+ Social Innovation Lab

• Design in terms of stylistic function has long passed. We are presented with real-world challenges which such complexity that simple design approaches do not provide workable solutions for the communities we live in. To entangle these interconnected contexts, a multi-disciplinary approach is needed to build inclusive and sustainable living environments for our future communities. Social Innovation Lab adopts a holistic approach, acknowledging that collaborations are essential to create impact, within national and international contexts.

• Social Innovation Lab is user-centered and strongly led by practice-based research: – through sustainable material research, we change our use of and access to resources, – through cultural analysis and a deeper understanding of the past, we can co-create the future, – through socially engaged practices, we can educate change.

Research lab Leaders: Emanuela Corti, Dr. Luis Felipe Moreno Leyva
Research lab members: Vicente Esteban, Paul Denison

M+ Future Making & Manufacture Lab:

• Future Making and Manufacturing is an open platform for many new digital manufacturing processes, from single prototypes through to high volume production, considering how research practice in new material forms and constructions can lead innovation for many manufacturing industries. This Lab is also within a collection of the crafts communities operating within the Jiangsu Province, with a wide variety of materials including bamboo, copper, earth, jade, silk, silver, stone, and wood. These craft materials processes offer unprecedented opportunities for design research as an expression of regionalism and digital innovation. Similar experiences that integrate traditional craft in contemporary design are happening in many other Chinese cities, promoting formats of traditional materials and handicraft techniques, workshops, and exhibitions.

Research lab Leaders: Massimo Imparato, Ivan Parati
Research lab members: Hongchao Wang

Research environment and facilities

• We are a multidisciplinary research team nurturing critical and innovative thinking about design in a broader context. We challenge the status quo and push the boundaries of industrial design. The symbiosis of Chinese and Western culture is an integral part of our research to innovate the social, cultural, and sustainable contexts.

• We collaborate with the Design School, International Business School Suzhou, and the School of Cultural Technology across curricula and Final Year Projects. Externally, we work with industry partners both domestically and internationally via Cumulus and Chartered Society of Designers (CSD) partnerships.

• PhD students share an office with individual workspaces to conduct their studies. R+ and S+ have dedicated research labs in the International Research building. M+ operates predominantly in the Design School Fab Lab, with multiple workshops and equipment for model making, prototyping and digital fabrication.

Potential supervisors

Design School

• Find out potential supervisors from Department of Industrial Design.

XJTLU Entrepreneur College (Taicang)

• Find out potential supervisors from School of Intelligent Manufacturing Ecosystem.

Why Choose XJTLU?

• Two Degrees: 1 from the University of Liverpool & 1 from Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (Bachelor's students)
• The University of Liverpool degree (Master's and PhD students)
• All degree courses are taught 100% in English.
• No knowledge of the Chinese language is required to apply to XJTLU.
• Learn free of charge Chinese alongside your course.
• A friendly international community.
• International Opportunities: "2+2" study route to the University of Liverpool, UK for undergraduate students (more than 3,500 XJTLU students are now studying at the University of Liverpool, UK through "2+2")
• International Opportunities: Wide range of study abroad opportunities in partner institutions in Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, the UK, the USA, South Korea, Russia, etc.
• International Opportunities: Partnerships with multinational companies in the likes of HSBC, Standard Chartered, Siemens, KPMG, Alstom, Schneider, ICBC, etc.

About Suzhou

You have the opportunity to live in one of the most culturally rich areas of China, with Suzhou’s UNESCO World Heritage gardens and canals famous around the world.

Suzhou combines its rich 2,500-year-old history with a drive to become one of the most modern cities in China. It has a population of more than six million and a GDP of a trillion RMB – far larger than those of many entire countries!

Alongside its beautiful tourist spots, Suzhou has many excellent learning resources and sports facilities, a great choice of shopping malls, cinemas and restaurants, and a variety of bars and nightclubs.

Today, the city’s canals, stone bridges, pagodas, and meticulously designed gardens have contributed to its status as one of the top tourist attractions in China. The classical gardens in Suzhou were added to the list of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 1997 and 2000.

Suzhou is located in the southeast of Jiangsu Province in eastern China. Within Suzhou is Suzhou Industrial Park, one of the most competitive development zones in China. This area also contains the Suzhou Dushu Lake Science and Education Innovation District (home to XJTLU), which sits beside Dushu Lake, one of two lakes in SIP.

Central Shanghai can be reached from Suzhou in just 30 minutes by high-speed train.

Library

XJTLU students have access to a wide range of library resources, from books and journals to electronic databases and articles. The library plays a key role as a research support and learning centre for the University, developing its collection by focusing on subject development and research requirements.

The library currently holds over 500,000 books, which are added to and updated throughout the year in response to requests from academic departments. It provides 22,000 square metres of space, housing 300 PCs and 2,500 seats for studying, discussion and computer and studio work.

Campuses

North Campus

Full of striking, architecturally impressive buildings, our North Campus provides state-of-the art teaching, laboratory, research and support facilities. This includes the award-winning and iconic Central Building, which houses our library.

The campus also has sports facilities, world class-fully equipped science and engineering laboratories, International Business School Suzhou, and design studios, as well as a variety of catering facilities, including Subway, Pacific Coffee Company, and many canteen-style fast-food options.

Landscaped gardens complement pieces of modern art to create a campus environment that has become one of the striking features of Suzhou Industrial Park.

South Campus

The first phase of our South Campus was opened to the public on 26 July 2016, as a major part of the University’s 10th anniversary celebrations.

Architecturally it contrasts our North Campus and features modern designs that complement the surrounding area. Eventually, the South Campus will satisfy the learning and teaching needs of approximately 6,000 XJTLU students as well as the University’s academic exchanges and research development plans. It will consist of eight buildings and be developed over two further phases:

Phase II: International Business School Suzhou at XJTLU

This phase will see the completion of a new building for International Business School Suzhou, set to open by the end of 2017.

PHASE III: XJTLU-GF School of Film and Television Arts and XJTLU Gym

Phase III consists of two buildings – the construction of the XJTLU-GF School of Film and Television Arts and a gym. Both buildings are expected to open by the end of 2018. The development of the School, in collaboration with financial services provider Gold Finance Group, is a significant part of XJTLU’s academic development strategy. It will mix digital media arts and film and television production and technology with performance and acting. The gym will provide improved and diversified sports facilities for students and staff on campus.

Living in University

When you come to XJTLU, you will have the opportunity to try a whole range of different sports and activities as well as developing any existing skills you already have.

Student clubs and societies

Student clubs and societies play an important part of student life. XJTLU has many organisations with themes such as art, sports, music, entrepreneurship, dance to name but a few. Some of the more established groups include a Model United Nations and the Student Union.

Another society, Intercom, provides a platform for all international students to arrange activities and events, and share ideas and experiences with the wider student body.

Catering

3 canteens, 3 coffee shops, Bar, Restaurants

Sports 

Currently, 21 sports are offered through PE classes at XJTLU, including badminton, basketball, belly dancing, billiards, boxing, bridge, Chinese martial arts, football, free combat, body building, golf, popping, roller-skating, sport dancing, table tennis, taekwondo, tai chi, tai chi sword, tennis, Ultimate Frisbee and yoga.

We have outside sport facilities that include basketball and tennis courts as well as indoor facilities, such as a golf training venue, gym, dance room, and table tennis room. There is also a football field located next to the new South Campus.