معرفی
Sarah Britten-Jones is a Senior Lecturer in Design at Oxford Brookes University's School of Arts, where she teaches on the UAL Foundation Diploma in Art and Design. She helps students develop confidence in experimentation and improve their material and spatial literacy within a safe learning environment, supporting those interested in further study in design and three-dimensional subjects.
Her educational background includes an MFA in Ceramic Art from the New York State College of Ceramics (2007), a PGCE in Post-compulsory Education from the University of Greenwich (2012), and a BA (Hons) in Ceramics with Glass from Bucks New University. She is currently completing her PhD at the Royal College of Art with research titled The University Otherwise.
Britten-Jones' research focuses on using systemic design methods to facilitate institutional self-awareness and continuous improvement in higher education. Her creative practice examines how universities might learn about and change themselves through stakeholder feedback mechanisms. She employs ethnographic, co-speculative design, and systemic design methodologies to visualize and reimagine feedback action cycles for preferred future states.
Her publications and exhibitions demonstrate a consistent trajectory from ceramic art practice to systemic design research. Recent works like the State of Design Report (2021) and her participation in the Three-minute thesis competition (2022) highlight her growing focus on educational systems and design thinking within academic contexts.
- Three-minute thesis competition, runner up, Royal College of Art Research, 2022
- In search of biscuit city, shortlisted for the Station Hill functional sculpture series, 2023
- Domain public art project, St. Retail of Reading, with Jon Lockhart, 2022
- Brookes Teaching Innovation Project fund, OBU, 2021-2022
- Full Tuition MFA Fellowship, Alfred University New York, 2005-07
As an insider researcher working within the institution she studies, Britten-Jones brings practical teaching experience to her research on university structures. She has been a Senior Lecturer at Oxford Brookes since 2017, following teaching positions at Thames Valley University (now University of West London) and Alfred University. Her current PhD research at the Royal College of Art investigates how universities can develop institutional metacognition through better feedback systems.
Britten-Jones is an active member of the Systemic Design Association and Systems and Complexity in Organisation (SCIO), regularly presenting her work at conferences including Oxford Brookes Learning and Teaching Conference and the Royal College of Art Post Graduate Research Conference.
