The three inputs to the debate, the workshop itself, the pre-workshop submission and the workshop questionnaire have highlighted and prioritised a number of issues, both in terms of what has been done and what needs to be done. Nevertheless it became apparent that a framework which could give some coherence to the research activity would be of value. A number were discussed at the workshop and the one shown in Figure 11 was considered of value. It shows on the two horizontal axes the concept to product process and the human to automation activity. The vertical axis indicates the level of effort that may be required. Figure 11 also indicates the area where it is perceived that the current range of research activities have taken place.

figure 11. Axes of the design domain (showing the perceived area of current design research activity

Clearly the 'islands of research activity' highlighted in Figure 11 will also have to be addressed by a programme dealing with integration. Nevertheless, it is considered that over the next 10 years the research activity will have to deal with the issues towards the axes(Figure 12) shown shaded. This inevitably puts particular emphasis on the notoriously difficult concept/soft research areas and will force the issue of pan institution and pan discipline research activity which will be discussed below.

figure 12. Proposed research space for the next 10 years

Specifically the major key issues that emerge from the three inputs are as follows:

• Knowledge and information management
• Integration
• Early stage support - both commercial and technical
• Process issues

• Metrics

• Design experiments and validation
• People