Robert (Bob) Young is Professor of Design Practice and Research Lead in the School of Design at Northumbria University, head of its ‘Design-led innovation practices and research methods’ research group. He began the first doctoral studies in the School and has assisted twenty-seven candidates to gain their PhDs. The last six of these have all concerned building knowledge for service design and social innovation. He has advised two previous UK Design Council, Design of the Times programmes in the North East of England (2007) and Cornwall (2010) on social innovation and service design projects with communities of practice. He recently served on the Scientific Advisory Board for The Netherland’s Creative Industries Science Programme (CRISP) on product service system design. He has partnered two recent AHRC Networks; Design Social Innovation and Sustainability (DESIS) UK, and; Service Design Research and is Coordinator of the Northumbria DESIS Lab, which undertakes collaborative social innovation learning projects with public and third sector organisations.
