Sparked by concerns with increased domain fragmentation in design research, we explored indicators of expansion, integration and consolidation in this area of enquiry through the lens of publications in Design Studies across the 40-years since the journal's inception. We examined several key indicators, including authors' disciplinary affiliations, levels of cross-disciplinary co-authorships, the increasing centrality of the term ‘design’ in stated university affiliations, the nature of citation patterns, the consolidation of core domain concepts over time and the role of esteemed authors as central ‘curators’ of design knowledge. We conclude that the Design Studies community has historically proven to be eminently capable of expanding its reach to new sub-disciplines through conceptual integration, whilst simultaneously consolidating the core foundation of design research.

由于对设计研究领域分散性的担忧加剧，我们从该期刊创立以来的40年间，通过《设计研究》出版物的角度探讨了该研究领域的扩展，集成和整合指标。我们研究了几个关键指标，包括作者的学科隶属关系，跨学科共同作者的水平，在指定的大学隶属关系中“设计”一词日益重要的地位，引文模式的性质，核心领域概念随着时间的推移以及尊贵的作者作为设计知识的中心“策展人”的作用。我们得出的结论是，历史上证明了Design Studies社区具有通过概念整合将其影响范围扩展到新的子学科的杰出能力，