Professor Kate Goldsworthy [PhD] FRSA
Professor of Circular Design and Innovation
Co-Director, Centre for Circular Design (CCD)
Dep-Director, Business of Fashion Textiles and Technology (BFTT)
Chelsea College of Arts, University of the Arts London
Bio
Kate is a designer and academic working to bridge materials science, industry and design through multidisciplinary & practice-led research.
Goldsworthy is a designer and academic whose research bridges materials science, industry and design. Her methods are transdisciplinary & practice-led, with a focus on materials and manufacturing innovation in circular economy contexts. She co-founded the Centre for Circular Design, University of the Arts London (UAL) with Prof Rebecca Earley.
She is also Deputy Director of the Business of Fashion, Textiles and Technology partnership (BFTT, 2018-23), funded by the UK Industrial Strategy (£5.5m) and managed by the AHRC. Other research income achieved to date totals over £2m, including awards for: Transdisciplinary Design Research (EU H2020, Mistra Foundation, AHRC) and Industry R&D Projects (AHRC, Mistra Foundation, Materials KTN). She was a member of the EPSRC Forum in Manufacturing Research (2016-2020) and is a regular reviewer for the EU Commission, UKRI/EPSRC, and Design Journal. She advises on policy groups and industry boards, including a long-standing relationship with Worn Again Technologies, where she currently serves as vice chair of their Circular Advisory Panel.
Having worked in the design industry for over ten years, in 2012 she completed the first UK practice-based doctorate focused on ‘designing textiles for the circular economy’. Since then she has continued to explore future manufacturing and recovery contexts through collaborative and design-led research. Her creative work has been exhibited & collected internationally. and commissions include The Science Museum, The V&A and the Museum of Fine Arts Boston.
Through recent research projects, Mistra Future Fashion (2015-2019) and the EU funded Trash-2-Cash (2015-2018), Kate and the CCD team continue to explore the potential for design to drive a more circular materials economy. This includes devising collaboration tools and methods for engaging stakeholders from all parts of the materials value chain as well as hands-on material and process development. She is also interested in the potential for digitisation and new production models to provide more sustainable future manufacturing visions. Nonwovens production, hi-tech finishing processes and chemical recycling developments are all part of this remit. Her approach is practice-based, always placing making at the centre of her research, and collaborative, often across disciplines or embedded in industry contexts through knowledge exchange projects.