Research and Practice

This article is concerned with the organizational context of coopera- tion between social scientists and designers in research and practice. It gives a brief background to the British experience in this field and outlines a number of issues that arise out of this. These concern task definition, working style and resource management. The case history concerns the experience of one group of research/practitioners over a period of ten years. Four projects are taken in time order: (1) Journalism, which provides design guidance (2) Design policy analysis for a multinational user group (3) The evaluation for building design of sociotechnical change (4) The provision of design recommendations for a new building type Discussion suggests that the conflicts that arise in undertaking the more complex projects can be minimized by organizational subdivision, a strategy the case history firm has adopted. In conclusion, the article comments on the aim of creating a united intellectual position in a growing organization at the present time.