Professor Rachel Cooper

Co-Director

+44 (0) 1524 593119

Design, Urban Sustainability, Design Against Crime, Design Management, Socially Responsible Design, Design & Manufacture

Rachel is Co-Director and Professor of Design Management at ImaginationLancaster, and also Director of the Lancaster Institute of Contemporary Arts.

She has authored several books in the field of Design and more than 200 research papers. Publications include The Design Agenda (1995) and The Design Experience (2003), and she is currently commissioning editor for a Gower series on Design for Social Responsibility. In May 2007, she was commissioned by the Foresight programme on Mental Wellbeing and Mental Capital to write the Scientific Review on Mental Wellbeing and the Built Environment. She is Editor of The Design Journal and President of the European Academy of Design; and is on the Arts and Humanities Research Council, and 2008 RAE Panel for Art and Design.

Her research interests cover design management; design policy; new product development; design in the built environment; urban regeneration; design against crime and socially responsible design.

Current research activities

VivaCity 2020

VivaCity2020 is an ambitious, five-year research project developed by a Sustainable Urban Environments consortium. This EPSRC-funded research initiative will deliver practical tools and resources to support sustainable and socially responsible urban design decision-making.

Design 2020: The UK design industry in 2020

Design 2020 is a research project undertaken by the Universities of Salford and Lancaster in partnership with British Design Innovation. The overall aim of Design 2020 is to explore potential futures for the UK Design industry.