Our department offers a unique opportunity to study the history of design and material culture. It benefits from being taught in the context of the high level of design practice undertaken by students at the RCA and the huge resources of the V&A. Students in the department study the history of design, both through its objects and its contexts – social, cultural, economic, political, technical and aesthetic. Our aim is to improve the quality of research and debate surrounding design and its practice, and to extend historical enquiry to include objects of design as a form of primary source material.