Dr Laura Santamaria
- Research Lead
-
School of Communication
Laura is a cultural theorist and design scholar researching the role of symbolic and cultural systems in shaping legitimacy, power and agency across sustainability transitions and institutional change.
Laura leads research at the School of Communication with senior responsibility for research strategy, interdisciplinary collaboration and development of opportunities across research and innovation ecosystems.
Her professional expertise lies in Research & Innovation ecosystems, strategic communication and sociocultural change, grounded in a career spanning industry, media and design-led entrepreneurship.
Prior to joining the RCA, she was Deputy Head (Research & Innovation) at Cambridge School of Art and Programme Director for the MA Design and Culture at Loughborough University London. She is the founder of Sublime magazine and CodeShift.
Laura’s research is interdisciplinary, positioned at the intersection of cultural theory, design and social science. She specialises in design semiotics and sustainability, with a focus on how meaning is produced and legitimised in socioecological and institutional change.
Key details
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Research interests
Bridging media studies, cultural theory and cognitive science, Laura's research examines how meaning systems – cultural codes, narratives, and representational practices – shape agency, values and collective identities. She develops conceptual frameworks and practice-based approaches that combine critical analysis with participatory action research, positioning design as a form of cultural intervention.
Her current projects include Design for Empowerment, an approach that foregrounds power as a central dimension of design-led social change, and Code Ecologies, which examines processes of legitimation by theorising meaning as a homeostatic system across cultural, technological, and environmental domains.
Practice
Laura is an internationally recognised leader in Design Semiotics. Her work on symbolic systems, cultural codes and framing practices is positioned alongside that of Marcel Danesi and Christian Pinson. She develops original frameworks that translate critical and cultural analysis into strategic forms of cultural intervention.
Through CodeShift Lab, her cultural strategy practice, she works with organisations and changemakers to shape cultural forces – narratives, legitimacy, and symbolic power – as systemic conditions enabling just and regenerative futures.
She is also the founder and editor-in-chief of Sublime, a pioneering independent media platform that for over two decades has shaped public narratives around sustainability and social transformation. Sublime operates as a site of cultural influence, contributing to how sustainability is framed, valued and made culturally relevant.
Research funding
Major Research and Knowledge Exchange Projects
(2025–26) Design for Empowerment Toolkit. Principal Investigator. RCA AHRC AAI Enterprise Impact Fellowship. £21,000.
Focus: Knowledge Exchange and Public Engagement
(2021–22) Fair Energy Campaign. Principal Investigator. Funder: Anglia Ruskin University, Sustainable Futures. £23,000.
Focus: Knowledge Exchange and Public Engagement.
(2020) The Fair Energy Campaign. Principal Investigator. Funder: London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC). £145,000. Focus: Strategic design, energy futures, participatory action research.
(2019–22) Counter-Framing Design: Radical Design Practices for Sustainability and Social Change. Co-Investigator. Funder: AHRC. £200,000.
Focus: Critical design management, framing, and strategic action.
(2009–13) Green Village (in partnership with Grampus Heritage). Co-Investigator. Funder: EU ERASMUS+. £1,350,000. Focus: Social innovation, rural development, cultural, social and economic sustainability.
2016-17 Other research-related. Value +£80K in scholarship, conferences, training and enterprise.
Publications, exhibitions and other outcomes
Selected Publications
Books
Santamaria, L. and Kuzmina, K., eds. (forthcoming 2026). Design for Empowerment: Approaches and Tools for Social Change. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Santamaria, L. (2017). From Good to Great: Using Cultural Codes to Improve the Design and Value Proposition of Sustainable Product-Service System Innovations. Doctoral thesis. Loughborough: Loughborough University.
Santamaria, L. and Santamaria, D. (2001). Santamaria – Identity. London: Art Books International.
Book chapters
Santamaria, L. (2023). Seeing the invisible: Revisiting the value of critical tools in design research for social change. In: Rogers, P. and Yee, J., eds. The Routledge Companion to Design Research. 2nd ed. London: Routledge, pp. 415–428.
Santamaria, L. (2023). The shadow side: Why embracing death and decay is essential to flourishing. In: Flourish by Design. London: Routledge, pp. 84–87.
Santamaria, L. (2020). It’s all about con[text]: A design semiotics approach for managing meaning-value in innovation processes. In: Oswald, L., ed. Marketing Semiotics: A Research Guide for Marketers at the Edge of Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Santamaria, L. and Santamaria, D. (2019). A journey toward sublime: A reflection on the influence of education values in design practice. In: Triggs, T. and Atzmon, L., eds. The Graphic Design Reader. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Journal articles
Santamaria, L. (2025). Code ecologies: Integrating cultural legitimacy analysis in sustainability transitions. Current Research in Environmental Sustainability. Advance online publication.
https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5670254
Santamaria, L. and Kuzmina, K. (2024). Heroic journeys: On design for empowerment and narratives of social change. DISCERN: International Journal of Design for Social Change, Sustainable Innovation and Entrepreneurship, 5(2), pp. 103–121.
Available at: https://bit.ly/4jJY9gp
Prendeville, S., Syperek, P. and Santamaria, L. (2022). On the politics of design framing practices. Design Issues, 38(3), pp. 71–84.
https://doi.org/10.1162/desi_a_00692
Santamaria, L., Escobar-Tello, M.C. and Ross, T. (2016). Switch the channel: Using cultural codes for designing and positioning sustainable products and services for mainstream audiences. Journal of Cleaner Production, 123, pp. 16–27.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.09.130
Conference proceedings
Santamaria, L. and Kuzmina, K. (2024). Design for Empowerment. In: Gray, C., Ciliotta Chehade, E., Hekkert, P., Forlano, L., Ciuccarelli, P. and Lloyd, P., eds. Proceedings of DRS2024, Boston, USA, 23–28 June.
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2024.140
Santamaria, L. (2019). The Fair Energy Mark in the making: Framing a citizen-led campaign by participatory design. In: Rogers, P., ed. Design Research for Change. Symposium at the Design Museum, London. https://hdl.handle.net/2134/11611626
Santamaria, L., Escobar-Tello, M.C. and Ross, T. (2015). Planet or people? Redefining the ideological position of sustainable design. In: Proceedings of EAD11: The Value of Design Research, Paris, April. https://bit.ly/49KgW6I
External collaborations
(2025–current) Expert, BEDA G42 – Planetary & Eco-Sustainable Design (Bureau of European Design Associations)
(2024–current) Editorial Board, Base Diseño e Innovación (open-access academic journal)
(2023-current) Expert, Design for Planet, Design Council
(2018-current) Fellow, Royal Society of Arts
(2015-current) Member, Design Research Society