CA2RE+

European partnership developing an experimenting collective learning environment for Design Driven Doctoral research.

The CA2RE+ Strategic Partnership consists of 11 organisations and associations from 8 EU countries who will develop a collective learning environment through Evaluation of Design Driven Doctoral Training.

At a series of biannual intensive study programmes for doctoral candidates the doctoral work-in-progress is evaluated through presentations, performances, exhibitions and critical discussions. Evaluations follow the iterative CA2RE+ development steps: observation, sharing, comparison, reflection, reformulation and recommendation.

Joint staff training is developed at each venue to introduce new experts to the process.

Objectives

The CA2RE+ advances the doctoral training from being a support to an experimental collective evaluation training environment for Designer Driven Doctoral research (DDDr). Learners at different stages of their process learn collectively with evaluators in an iterative way.

Sharing and comparing doctoral training across research traditions and cultures within the core areas, dealing with creativity and culture, leads to transparency and recognition of tacit skills and qualifications. The development of collective evaluation courses contributes to promoting and rewarding excellence in teaching and skills development.

Context / background

The CA2RE+ explicates;
The transformative and innovative power of highly individual strategies in artistic research, the diversity of research traditions and the integrative nature of architectural design research, able to face the contemporary knowledge fragmentation from humanities, social sciences and technology.

The interdisciplinary relevance of convergent thinking, mastering wicked problems, open-ended processes, resilience and risk, as well as orientation to future.

The didactic relevance of DDDr for training creative professionals on how to use the integrative power of design thinking to master open-ended processes while solving contemporary spatial dilemmas (sociological, climate-change-related, political…).

In the arts, architecture and design, understanding of reality aims to future creations, remains based on a personal and creative aspect, where the relevance of singularity of particular cases plays the key role in research strategies and evaluation. The evaluation of this type of relevance requires explication of tacit knowledge and research impact evidence, including nonwritten production.