Global Academies Human Centred Design

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Improving the world around us. Organisations, products, processes and services that place the individual at their centre provide effective solutions. Human centred design fuels the creation of innovative solutions to global challenges. This Global Academy links our expertise in design with technology, art, architecture and policy to address a diverse range of global challenges including decent work and economic growth, industry innovation and infrastructure and the impact of public body decisions on future generations contributing and drawing on the world-leading Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015.

Partnership for Education and Research (PER) Programme for Women in Cyber

The project focusses on ‘Women and Girls in Cyber’ – and brings together academic staff and female students from both institutions to research and establish best practice for cyber security education for Women and Girls – where they are currently significantly underrepresented. The overarching aim of the PER project is for Cyber Security and related disciplines to be more accessible to female students, both in the UK and in Saudi Arabia.

The Next Generation of Disinfection Robots

Global Academies’ Santander Fellow, Dr Esyin Chew’s research explores the use of robotics to combat highly contagious diseases in global healthcare, hospitality, and education environments.

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The Next Generation of Disinfection Robots

Global Academies’ Santander Fellow, Dr Esyin Chew’s research explores the use of robotics to combat highly contagious diseases in global healthcare, hospitality, and education environments.

Read more here

International Design Ecosystems: How Cardiff Met's research has increased SME competitiveness

Cardiff Met’s International Centre for Design and Research (PDR) is recognised for its research into how design can improve people’s everyday lives and how for example governments and policy makers can change the way they develop policy for the benefit of all.

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Well-Designed Democracy: Using Design to Re-think Democratic Institutions and Governance

Our Global Academies Santander Fellow, Piotr Swiatek is researching using design to re-think democratic institutions and governance. Learn more about his exciting research here

Design for dementia

The CARIAD (Centre for Applied Research in Inclusive Arts and Design) team are a multidisciplinary group of researchers from across all schools at Cardiff Metropolitan University investigating the design of products and services for people living with advanced dementia. Their research has influenced care practice, fostered dementia awareness, provided guidelines for the design industry and stimulated business in the UK and globally. Read more

Cardiff School of Technologies EUREKA Robotics Lab pilot new Covid-19 (coronavirus) testing at GP surgery

Academics at Cardiff Met’s Eureka Robotics Lab are joining the effort to slow the spread of Covid-19 (coronavirus) by using the latest robotics technology to pilot a system for identifying virus symptoms. Based at the University’s School of Technologies, the robotics team will use three Canbot U03S robots to help GPs on the front-line. Read more

PDR researchers redesign the ‘fajita experience’ for Las Iguanas

PDR (International Centre for Design and Research) is a design and innovation research institution based at Cardiff Metropolitan University. The Latin American-themed casual dining restaurant chain, Las Iguanas, reached out to PDR to re-design and improve their ‘fajita experience.’ Fajitas are the most popular dish served at Las Iguanas restaurants and PDR was tasked with improving the service and presentation of this dish for staff and diners.

You can see the final product redesign and follow the journey of the revamping the ‘fajita experience’ here, exploring how PDR researchers developed the new fajita stack through visits to the restaurants, spending time alongside staff and experiencing the food presentation itself.

Cardiff Metropolitan University and Primary School Pupils Design Wellbeing App

The Wellbeing of the Future Generations (Wales) Act calls on communities to prioritise wellbeing, sustainability and access to green spaces. A project team from the Cardiff School of Education and Social Policy (CSESP) at Cardiff Metropolitan University responded to this national health need by collaborating closely with regional primary schools to support schools and parents in enhancing children’s wellbeing. The iValue U Wellbeing App was the result of an innovative year-long partnership between Cardiff Metropolitan University’s CSESP team and Welsh primary schools across South Wales. The project, which was funded by the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales (HEFCW), was created by Lecturers Nick Young, Dylan Adams, and Lisa Fenn who were concerned with the rising screen time use among young children, and research which suggested that young people in Wales felt emotionally disconnected from nature. Read more

The Material Library

Cardiff Metropolitan University is home to FAB-Cre8—a multidisciplinary research and innovation group based in Cardiff School of Art & Design. FAB-Cre8 is driven by an interest in emerging technologies and brings academics together from across the university who engage in a range of research projects working with digital fabrication processes, physical computing, the ‘Internet of Things’ (IOT) and material investigation applied to a broad range of art and design contexts. Read more

Sharing Open Education Practices Using technology for Higher Education - SHOUT4HE

Recent evidence suggests that digital technologies are not always effectively designed for teaching, learning and creative inquiry in HE environments. Professor Gary Beauchamp, Dr Cheryl Ellis, Nick Young and project research assistant and PhD student Sammy Chapman, are currently leading the Erasmus+ funded SHOUT4HE project which designs open educational resources on effective teaching with technology across a wide range of disciplines in HE. The team believe that HE teaching skills are best addressed through international collaboration and cooperation between Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) to develop best practice and innovation. The project has five university partners in four countries: The University of Limerick (Ireland), University of Nice and University of Bordeaux (France), and Belgium (PXL University of Applied Sciences and Arts). Read more

Cardiff Met Trauma Kit

A life-saving, portable, and low-cost trauma kit to treat the victims of road traffic collisions at the roadside in developing countries has been designed and developed by Academics at Cardiff Met’s Cardiff School of Art and Design, jointly with Professor Judith Hall from Cardiff University, and doctors from the Welsh NHS.

The Trauma kit has been designed in such a way that non-medical specialists, such as police offices, civilians and road traffic officers are able to intuitively use the kit, helping to ‘treat’ the victim at the roadside whilst they await specialist medical support. Now in manufacture by commercial partner, BCB International, this work was highly commended at the British Expertise International Healthcare Awards (2018). Use of the kit is also being explored for disaster relief, and other significant events.

Who we are

We are a cross-discipline academy that uses our expertise in design, technology, art, architecture, and policy to meet global challenges. Our cutting-edge work is organised around our vibrant and practice-focused schools and multidisciplinary groups and centres, such as the Centre for Applied Research in Inclusive Arts and Design (CARIAD) and PDR-International Centre for Design and Research. Our Global Academy is a virtual space bringing together our work from these areas underpinned by a variety of activities to support interdisciplinary, innovative and international research and innovation.

What we do

This Global Academy showcases and supports the research, learning, and networks related to Human Centered Design. Underpinning research within this Global Academy are two UN Sustainable Development Goals: decent work and economic growth, and industry innovation and infrastructure.

Multidisciplinary researchers working within this Global Academy study a range of topics in art, technologies, digital fabrication and design, as well as related technologies in Artificial Intelligence (AI), robotics, and data science. Their shared focus is designing innovative and creative products, services and processes for industry which place the individual at the centre. One such multidisciplinary research project involves creating a ‘maker space’ facility that enables the NHS to work with people who have neurological conditions, brain injuries, and other chronic conditions to collaboratively create products that improve long-term social and physical outcomes. This project ensures that people are able to maintain or improve their independence and vocational ability as well as reducing cost to the NHS. This Global Academy aims to not only improve design and design processes, but also to facilitate connections between people by designing effective policies – an example of this is PDR’s applied training programme which has been delivered to governments and businesses across the globe, which aims to train and educate teams in how to implement service design and policy design principles in their approaches. For further examples, see 'the difference we are making' tab.

You can join this Global Academy through any of the programmes listed in our study with us section, or for prospective research collaborations, please contact the Global Academies Research & Innovation Officer.

Why we do it

By bringing our strengths together to focus on addressing some of the most pressing global challenges we are able to increase our impact on the globe and fulfil our purpose, which is to deliver high quality and high impact practice-focused and professionally recognised education, research and innovation in partnership with our students and industry.

Contact Us

Professor Andrew Walters, Head of Human Centred Design Global Academy
atwalters@pdr-design.com

Research groups and centres

At the intersection of disciplines is where new ideas emerge and innovative research happens. Our cutting-edge work is organised around multi-disciplinary centres of excellence. Find out more about each of our centres and groups through these links:

The Sustainable and Resilient Built Environment Group

FabCre8

MetaTechnicity

CARIAD Research Group

Cardiff Met UCD Research Group

FOVO

EUREKA

PDR

Surgical and Prosthetic Design

Ecodesign

Design and Innovation on Policy

User Centred Design

Welsh Centre for Tourism Research

FabLab

Creative Learning Research

Artistic Research

Cybersecurity, Information Networks Centre (CINC)

Creative Computing Research Centre

Centre for Industry 4.0 and Blockchain Research (CI4BCR)

BioEngineering Research Group (BRG)

Study with us

Explore our interdisciplinary post-graduate study and career development opportunities

Collaborate with us

PER Project

For information click here.

PDR

Located within Cardiff Metropilitan University PDR is a world-leading design consultancy and applied research centre. They have a unique approach, blending leading, high quality research activity alongside award-winning, proven and highly experienced consultancy practice.

More information about PDR can be found here.

Research & Innovation Services

Cardiff Metropolitan University recognises the importance of collaboration and encourages its staff to engage in projects that are of benefit to the local, national and international communities. With experience in managing both small and large-scale projects, Cardiff Met has a strong track record of achieving innovative outcomes, which deliver social and economic benefits.

Our knowledge and expertise extends across many diverse industries from manufacturing to services encompassing design, sport, tourism, management, education and health.

For information on the ways which you can collaborate with us click here.

Our Research Groups and Centres

There are opportunities to collaborate with all our Research Groups and Centres. More information on each of these and their contact information can be found in the drop down list above and on the other Global Academy pages.