Science Explorer Back to mapMap
Discussion
Topic · Mechanical Engineering

Design Education and Practice

Design Education and Practice is a research topic within Mechanical Engineering. Science Explorer counts 31k research works in it since 1950. 10.0% of them reached the world's top 10% most cited for their field and year.

This cluster of papers explores the principles and applications of design thinking in engineering design processes, emphasizing creativity, innovation, biomimetics, knowledge management, collaborative design, problem-solving, prototyping, and concept generation.

  • Design Thinking
  • Engineering Design
  • Creativity
  • Innovation
  • Biomimetics
  • Knowledge Management
  • Collaborative Design
  • Problem-Solving
  • Prototyping
  • Concept Generation
Research works
31k
fractional, since 1950
In the world top 10%
3.1k
per year above
Top-10% rate
10.0%
share of its works in the world top 10%
Growth, 2018-21 → 2022-25
+5%
the tick is no change
Largest producer
United States
34% of the 10 largest, 2022-now
Design Education and Practice

Which countries lead Design Education and Practice research?

By volume, the United States and China publish the most (1.3k and 630 works in 2022-now).

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 United States 1.3k works
  2. 2 China 630 works
  3. 3 United Kingdom 402 works
  4. 4 Germany 379 works
  5. 5 Italy 242 works
  6. 6 Türkiye 217 works
  7. 7 India 205 works
  8. 8 Australia 172 works
  9. 9 Canada 169 works
  10. 10 Netherlands 153 works

How concentrated that is

The same countries as shares of everything the list above accounts for. A node where two countries do two thirds of the work and one spread evenly across twelve read alike as a ranking and not at all alike here.

United States: 33.5%China: 16.3%United Kingdom: 10.4%Germany: 9.8%6 others listed: 30.0%34%largest
United States1,297 · 33.5%China630 · 16.3%United Kingdom402 · 10.4%Germany379 · 9.8%6 others listed1,158 · 30.0%

Shares of the rows listed above, not of the whole node.

Which institutions lead Design Education and Practice research?

By volume in 2022-now, Politecnico di Milano publishes the most Design Education and Practice research, followed by Delft University of Technology and Pennsylvania State University.

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 Politecnico di MilanoItaly 71 works
  2. 2 Delft University of TechnologyNetherlands 52 works
  3. 3 Pennsylvania State UniversityUnited States 41 works
  4. 4 Aalborg UniversityDenmark 38 works
  5. 5 Purdue University West LafayetteUnited States 37 works
  6. 6 Centre National de la Recherche ScientifiqueFrance 31 works
  7. 7 Tongji UniversityChina 31 works
  8. 8 Swinburne University of TechnologyAustralia 30 works
  9. 9 Georgia Institute of TechnologyUnited States 29 works
  10. 10 Aalto UniversityFinland 29 works

Who are the leading researchers in Design Education and Practice?

The most-cited researchers publishing on Design Education and Practice include Kai You Wang, Herbert A. Simon and Ian J. Deary.

  1. 1 Kai You Wang China 224k citations
  2. 2 Herbert A. Simon United States 179k citations
  3. 3 Ian J. Deary United Kingdom 176k citations
  4. 4 Kalyanmoy Deb United States 171k citations

Ranked by citations received across their whole record, among researchers with at least three works on this topic.

What are the most cited papers in Design Education and Practice?

The most cited paper in Design Education and Practice is "Design Experiments in Educational Research" (Paul Cobb, Jere Confrey, Andrea A. diSessa et al., 2003), with 3,507 citations. Next come "Toward a Theory of Organizational Creativity" (3,375) and "The role of product architecture in the manufacturing firm" (2,893).

Most cited papers
#PaperReleasedCitations
1 Design Experiments in Educational Research Paul Cobb, Jere Confrey, Andrea A. diSessa et al. · Educational Researcher 2003 3,507
2 Toward a Theory of Organizational Creativity Richard W. Woodman, John E. Sawyer, Ricky W. Griffin · Academy of Management Review Apr 1993 3,375
3 The role of product architecture in the manufacturing firm Karl T. Ulrich · Research Policy Open access May 1995 2,893
4 The theory of affordances James J. Gibson · Medical Entomology and Zoology 1977 2,848
5 Engineering Design Thinking, Teaching, and Learning Clive L. Dym, Alice Merner Agogino, Özgür Eriş et al. · Journal of Engineering Education 2005 2,805
All 99 most cited papers, with filters and sorting

Where is Design Education and Practice research done?

The largest centres of Design Education and Practice research in 2022-now are London (United Kingdom), Beijing (China), Istanbul (Türkiye) and Milan (Italy). Among places with at least 20 works in it, it is an unusually large share of all research in Espoo, Aalborg and Delft.

Largest cities, 2022-now

  1. 1 LondonUnited Kingdom 112 works
  2. 2 BeijingChina 87 works
  3. 3 IstanbulTürkiye 86 works
  4. 4 MilanItaly 76 works
  5. 5 ShanghaiChina 76 works
  6. 6 MelbourneAustralia 61 works
  7. 7 TokyoJapan 54 works
  8. 8 HangzhouChina 53 works
  9. 9 DelftNetherlands 53 works
  10. 10 SingaporeSingapore 52 works

Where it is the local speciality

  1. EspooFI · 31.8 works12×
  2. AalborgDK · 39.0 works11×
  3. DelftNL · 52.7 works11×
  4. EindhovenNL · 27.6 works10×
← less than its size predicts1×more →

Location quotient: how much more of its research is in Design Education and Practice than the world average.

See Design Education and Practice on the map

Where is the best place to study Design Education and Practice?

Among universities, judged by research, Politecnico di Milano, Singapore University of Technology and Design and Zhejiang University score highest, combining excellence, specialisation, size, growth and international reach. Research strength is one signal when choosing where to study; it does not measure teaching.

0%20%40%mean 20.03%fractional works in this field (log) →share of work in the world top 10% →Zhejiang UniversityImperial College Lon…Singapore University…Politecnico di Milano
above the meannear itbelow it

One dot per university in the first ten of the table below, at the default weights. The upper left is the interesting corner: small places doing unusually strong work.

Excellenceshare of its work in the world top 10%, 2022-now and all time averaged
40%
Specialisationhow much of its work is in this field, counted up to 10× the world share
10%
Sizeits output in this field, on a log scale
30%
Growthoutput growth, counted from -20% to +20%
10%
Internationalshare of its work with a co-author abroad
10%
Each slider sets a weight; the share it gets of the score is beside it.
#UniversityScoreTop 10%SpecialisationWorksGrowth
1Politecnico di MilanoItaly 65.69.4%18.6×71 +31.8%
2Singapore University of Technology and DesignSingapore 65.518.1%44.7×22 +7.7%
3Zhejiang UniversityChina 64.635.8%1.4×20 +92.0%
4Imperial College LondonUnited Kingdom 64.629.2%2.8×15 +89.8%
5Hong Kong Polytechnic UniversityChina 62.021.1%4.5×20 +39.5%
6Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyUnited States 61.915.6%7.1×27 +4.4%
7City University of Hong KongChina 60.632.7%2.8×8 -
8Eindhoven University of TechnologyNetherlands 60.115.5%13.9×26 +18.2%
9Swinburne University of TechnologyAustralia 59.912.0%19.9×30 +118.8%
10Delft University of TechnologyNetherlands 59.510.9%14.6×52 -27.6%

Universities only. The score blends excellence (40%), size (30%), specialisation (10%), growth (10%), international reach (10%), 2022-now; growth compares 2018-21 with 2022-25 and counts up to +20%, since a jump from a small base is mostly noise.

Every institution in Design Education and Practice, country by country

Is Design Education and Practice research growing?

Output in 2022-2025 was 5% higher than in 2018-2021, peaking in 2020. The fastest-growing topics are Design Education and Practice.

still counting19801990200020102020
grewheldshrank

The same series as a ribbon: one cell per year, darker for more. The line above answers how much; this answers when.

Its share of all research

Growing output can still be a shrinking share: all of science grows. This is Design Education and Practice as a percentage of every work published that year, 0.029% in 2024.

still counting0.020%0.040%Design Education and Practice0.027% in 202519801990200020102020

Fractional works of Design Education and Practice over all fractional works that year. How the balance of science has shifted.

How much of it reaches the world top 10%

Year by year.

still counting5%10%15%Design Education and Practice10.1% in 2025200020102020

Of each year's works in it, the share that reached the world's 10% most cited for their field and year. A field is the world for its own topics, so there is no other line to hold it against.

Which topics inside it are moving

Growth and decline on one axis around a shared zero. Two lists side by side hide the thing that matters: whether the growth dwarfs the decline, or the other way round.

Discussion

Ask a question or share a note about Design Education and Practice. Posts are plain text and can be reported.