Practice Research Symposium (PRS) Series

RMIT seeks out practitioners who have developed a body of work that demonstrates mastery of their field. We invite them to reflect upon the nature of that mastery within a critical framework and to speculate through design on the nature of their future practice.

Design Practice Research at RMIT is a longstanding program of research into what venturous designers actually do when they design.

Six times a year across the globe, these invited ‘masters’ come together to be part of a Practice Research Symposium (PRS). In this they engage in a long weekend of discourse. Each candidate’s presentation at the PRS paces their research and allows public consideration of the nature of the mastery that their peers have recognised in their work. The research embedded in their practice is interrogated within a group of their peers and challenged by critics that they respect. The PRS weekend also includes lectures, discussion panels, social events and the chance to observe research completion events and their exhibitions.

• Practice Research Symposium Asia
• Practice Research Symposium Australia
• Practice Research Symposium Europe

The Graduate Research Conference (GRC) has changed to the Practice Research Symposium (PRS)

Over the last few years as our postgraduate program has become more internationally focussed the GRC acronym has become a little exposed in some instances. The term Graduate Research Conference is not all that descriptive of what actually goes on at our weekend symposiums either in Melbourne or internationally. Our own community is of course used to the phrase and very clear about what it stands for and that clarity comes from participation and association with the event. For others who are new to what we do the phrase is far less helpful and can even be a little misleading. Therefore after quite a lot of deliberation we have changed from GRC to PRS. The new name, Practice Research Symposium, attempts to identify the strategic focus of our research and post graduate training program around design practice research.

Excerpt from History of the GRC (PDF 75 KB) by Professor Leon van Schaik.

Past conferences/ symposiums

Past Graduate Research Conferences/Practice Research Symposiums