Qian's academic career spans over two decades, during which she has developed expertise and a strong passion for both Service Design and Design Management, combined with an outstanding track record in research.
Qian joined the RCA’s Service Design programme in 2013 as a Senior Tutor and her vast experience and expertise has been pivotal to its continual growth, development and success.
Having taken up the role of Head of Programme for Service Design in 2024, she continues to build on the international success and reputation of this programme, as well as setting the agenda for service design research and practice, and moving this forward into new future thinking.
She has over two decades of academic experience, with a track record of producing high-quality research outputs, securing research funding, establishing research partnerships in the UK and internationally, and delivering postgraduate teaching for both taught and research programmes in Design.
Before joining RCA, she was Programme Leader for a Design Management MA course, Research Fellow for a number of research projects, and Product Designer in agencies.
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Research interests
Qian is a Reader in Service Design, Policy and Social Innovation. Her research interests cover: Service Design, Design Thinking, Design Management, and Design Policy across all sectors of industry.
She has a specific interest in piloting and championing the value of design in trans-disciplinary innovation that addresses contemporary societal challenges in health and wellbeing, community and sustainability.
Qian has a track record of securing successful research funding applications, and producing high quality publications of world-leading or international excellence.
She also supervises PhD students and and serves on the scientific committees of various conferences, journals, and funding bodies.
Qian is an active member of the AHRC Review College and is an external examiner for PhD and Master’s programmes for a number of universities.
Research funding
2022-2023 - Principal Investigator: Connecting Roots Co-creating a Green Social Prescribing Network in Walsall for Health and Wellbeing, £180K, AHRC, supporting the scaling of green social prescribing services locally.
2020-2022 - Principal Investigator: Nature’s Way: Co-Creating Methods for Innovating Nature-based Solutions for Public Health and Green Recovery in a Post-COVID World, £400K AHRC/UKRI; facilitating cross-sector collaboration and integrates otherwise 'siloed' knowledge and expertise in innovating nature-based solutions for health and wellbeing following the COVID-19 pandemic.
2016-2020 - Co- Investigator: Blue Green Infrastructure through Social Innovation, €6.5M, EU Commission; exploring social solutions for maintaining blue-green infrastructure in cities through design.
2014-2015 - Principal Investigator: UK-China Design Policy Network, £45K, AHRC.
2010 - Principal Investigator: Design for the UK and Chinese Consumer Markets, £12,000, Research Council, UK.
2008–2009 - Researcher: UK Chinese Collaborative Partnership for Employability, Entrepreneurship and Global Citizenship, Prime Minister’s Initiative Round 2, British Council, UK.
2007–2008 Researcher: 2020 Vision: The UK Design Industry in 2020, Designing for the 21st Century, EPSRC and AHRC.
2004–2006 Researcher: Sino-European Design Management Network , Asia-link, EU Commission.
Current and recent projects
2022-2023 Connecting Roots
Role: Supporting the scaling of green social prescribing services locally. Co-creating a Green Social Prescribing Network in Walsall for Health and Wellbeing.
2020-2022 Nature’s Way
Role: Co-Creating Methods for Innovating Nature-based Solutions for Public Health and Green Recovery in a Post-COVID World. Facilitating cross-sector collaboration and integrates otherwise 'siloed' knowledge and expertise in innovating nature-based solutions for health and wellbeing following the COVID-19 pandemic.
Nature's Way project website: naturesway.rca.ac.uk
2016–2020 Blue Green Infrastructure through Social Innovation
Role: Project Partner
6.5M Euro funded by EU Commission
The overall objective of the project Blue Green Infrastructure through Social Innovation project (BEGIN) is to demonstrate improved climate change adaptation solutions through blue-green infrastructure (BGI) in urban areas, to capture and sustain BGI’s multiple benefits by using social innovation, and to mainstream BGI into urban planning and operation by developing financially feasible business cases and overcoming governance barriers.
BEGIN project website: northsearegion.eu/begin
RCA project website: begin-socialinnovation.com
2014–2015 UK-China Design Policy Network
Role: Principal Investigator
£45k funded by AHRC
The study aims to develop a UK-China network in design policy to facilitate interactions between UK and China, and between researchers and policy makers.
This network is aimed at professional, educational, and government organizations which might contribute to the development and management of initiatives to either grow business or design capability and capacity.
Through a series of workshops and seminars, the project will develop partnerships to share good practices in design policy development and to stimulate discussions on this topic.
This project will also help build capacity in design policy research, and will inform the future development of the research networking theme. It will conclude by undertaking a mapping exercise to understand the focuses and principles of policy making in each country; and from this, identify differences and similarities in the approaches taken by each country in supporting design innovation.
This will in turn provide the basis for a generic model of design policy which will be disseminated at a final event to be held in London, and will be used to inform national and regional policies supporting the design sector.
Publications, exhibitions, other outcomes
Selected Publications
Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles
Sun, Q., Loveday, M., Nwe, S., Morris, N. and Boxall, E., 2023. Green Social Prescribing in practice: a case study of Walsall, UK. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 20(17), p.6708. 10.3390/ijerph20176708
He, Y., Jorgensen, A., Sun, Q., Corcoran, A. and Alfaro-Simmonds, M.J., 2022. Negotiating complexity: Challenges to implementing community-led nature-based solutions in England pre-and post-COVID-19. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(22), p.14906. 10.3390/ijerph192214906
Sun, Q., 2020. Towards a New Agenda for Service Design Research. The Design Journal, Volume 23(1) pp.1-22. 10.1080/14606925.2019.1694808
De Leon, N., Sun, Q., Utriainen, T., Nordberg, M. and Jones, R., 2018. Future states: design and science for sustainability. CERN IdeaSquare Journal of Experimental Innovation, 2(2), pp.15-24. http://dx.doi.org/10.23726/cij.2018.765
SUN, Q. & RUNCIE, C. 2017. Is Service Design in Demand. Design Management Journal, Volume 11(1) P67-78, https://doi.org/10.1111/dmj.12028
Sun, Q & Park, H. 2017. The Map As An Object of Service Design, The Design Journal, Volume 20 (1), https://doi.org/10.1080/14606925.2017.1352911
Sun, Q. 2010. 'Embedding Employability in the Curriculum: A Comparative Study of Employer Engagement Models Adopted by Design Programmes in China and UK ', Journal of Chinese Entrepreneurship, pp. 36-48 https://doi.org/10.1108/17561391111106016
Sun, Q. 2010. 'Design Industries and Policies in the UK and China: a Comparison', in: DMI Review, Design Management Institution, December 2010, pp.70-77. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1948-7169.2010.00097.x
Sun, Q. 2013. ‘The Conception of Branding in not-for-profit SMEs’, International Journal of Management Cases 15(4), pp.386-400
Sun, Q; Williams, A & Evans, M. 2011. 'A Theoretical Design Management Framework', The Design Journal, 14(1), pp.112-131. https://doi.org/10.2752/175630610X12877385838885
Book sections
Muller, P., Malakhatka, E., Sun, Q., Rinner, A. (in press) Strategic Design in Industry and Business, Handbook of Technology Innovation, Springer
Sun, Q., Corcoran, A. and Jorgensen, A., (in press) Nature’s affordances: challenges and opportunities, in V. Tischler and K. Gray (eds) Pandemic & Beyond, Manchester University Press
Sun, Q., Richard, A. and Savithri, B., (in press) . Applying service design approaches to create a sustainable fashion retail future. Inaugural Colloquium for Designing Retail and Services Futures, Routledge, London
Sun, Q., Jorgensen, A., & Corcoran, A. 2022. An Investigation into the Value of Design in Nature-based Solutions for Health and Wellbeing in a Post-COVID World, Environments by Design: Health, Wellbeing and Place. AMPS, ISSN 238-9467
Sun, Q. 2018. A Review of UK Design Policy. In Wang, xiaohong (Ed.), Blue Book: Report on the Development of China's Innovation Design, P159-180, Beijing: People's Publishing House(China). ISBN: 978-7-01-019450-9
Sun, Q. 2014. Design Policy and National Innovation Systems. In Wang, xiaohong (Ed.), Blue Book of Industrial Design: Annual Report of the Development of China’s Industrial Design Sector, P80-88, Beijing: Social Science Academic Press (China). ISBN: 978-7-5097-6132-8
Williams, A & Cooper, R & Evans, M & Sun, Q. 2009. ‘2020 Vision - The UK Design Industry Ten Years On', in Inns, T (ed.), Designing for the 21st Century: Volume 2: Interdisciplinary Methods and Findings, Gower Publishing, Farnham, UK, pp.39-54. ISBN: 978-1-86220-233-7
Papers in peer-reviewed conference proceedings
Sun, Q. and Loveday, M., 2023. Design for social imagination, ASDR2023: Life Changing Design, 10.21606/iasdr.2023.392
Sun, Q 2022. Service Design in Organisational Change. Proceedings of DRS 2022. Design Research Society, 10.21606/drs.2022.416
Sun, Q., Phoebe, J. & Ziwei, L. 2022. Service design practice and its future relevance. In preceding of The 23rd DMI: Academic Design Management Conference, DMI, Toronto
Sun, Q 2019. A Framework of Service Design Knowledge, S&S 2019 Conference Lost in (G)Loccalization, November 27th to 29th, Lisbon
Sun, Q., Makepeace, J., Rebolledo, N. and de Leon, N., 2018. Design Practice for Blue Green Infrastructure in the Context of Urban Resilience. IFoU. https://doi.org/10.3390/IFOU2018-05979
SUN, Q. & RUNCIE, C. 2016. Is Service Design in Demand. The 20th DMI: Academic Design Management Conference Proceedings: Inflection Point: Design Research Meets Design Practice, 2016 Boston. The Design Management Institute
Sun, Q. 2016. Emerging Trends of Design Policy in the UK. Proceedings of DRS 2016, Design Research Society 50th Anniversary Conference. Brighton, UK, 27–30 June 2016. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2016.113
Sun, Q & D Lowe. 2014. ‘Cultural Criminals: How Social Media Facilitated the Dilution of Subculture’, in 19th DMI: Academic Design Management Conference: Design Management in an Era of Disruption, London 2-4 September 2014
Sun, Q & S Almeida. 2012. Designing Experiences in Events – A study on event agencies in Portugal, Leading Innovation through Design, International Design Management Research Conference, Boston, August 2012
Sun, Q. 2012. Embedding Learning-to-Learn into the Curriculum, in: 'Crossing Talents! Transversality in Design', School of Art, Design and Architecture, Aalto University, Helsinki, Sweden, pp.117-125
Articles in magazines and periodical newsletters
Sun, Q., 2012. Design education in the UK: The students speak. Design Management Review, 23(4), pp.36-45.
Sun, Q. 2011. ‘What Policies Matter to Design’ in SEE Bulletin, June 2011, pp. 2-7
External collaborations
- Member of Peer Review College for AHRC and member of APDIG (All-Party Design & Innovation Group and Design Commission).
- External Examiner for a number of institutions, including Lancaster University, Staffordshire University, University of Arts London, and Loughborough University.
- Collaborator with a large number of international institutions, and has developed good work relationships with Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Tsinghua University, and Shanghai Institute of Visual Arts in China.
- Qian is regularly invited to review papers for conferences, book proposals and journals.
