Professor Martyn Evans

Martyn is Director of Manchester School at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. He is a product designer and design academic with over 20 years research, teaching and leadership experience. Interested in the strategic role that design commands in a variety of settings, his research explores the approaches designers use to conceptualise and communicate the future. With broad experience of design as future making, he has presented on this, and related, topics nationally and internationally. He is a reviewer for a number of research councils and in 2019 he was appointed to the Advisory Board for the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council. He has served on the Council of the Design Research Society and is currently a Board Member of the International Association of Societies of Design Research (IASDR).

Martyn has significant experience of securing funding for major research projects including from the AHRC, ESRC, UKRI and the European Commission and continues to collaborate with researchers nationally and internationally. He has supervised numerous doctoral candidates in a variety of design areas with majority of these exploring the value that design brings to organisational and societal settings. He has also examined PhDs in the UK and Australia and is always willing to discuss potential PhD research projects. With has an extensive track record of undergraduate and postgraduate curriculum development, and external examinership roles in the UK and South Korea, Martyn has a broad range of leadership experience in UK Higher Education Institutions including roles as head of department and director of research.

He holds the following degrees: BA (Hons) Product Design, Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication (1996); MA Industrial Design, Manchester Metropolitan University (1997); and PhD in Design Futures, Lancaster University (2010).