In partnership with world-renowned institutions, the Design Trust offers fellowships that allow individuals to develop their emerging careers, build in-depth research, acquire and create innovative work or increase their skills within their related discipline. These include, but are not limited to residency programs, internships, research, writing, collaborative projects, and workshops.
The new one-year programme, Design Trust Fellowship at V&A East, awards a creative practitioner funding to engage in research at V&A East Storehouse, fieldwork in Hong Kong, the Greater Bay Area and China where appropriate, and to produce a new creative work, which will be displayed at V&A East for a six-month duration. The inaugural V&A East Design Trust Fellowship will begin in Autumn 2025, culminating in a commissioned work on display in Autumn 2026 through Spring 2027. Interested applicants can now submit until August 22nd 2025.
Practitioners are asked to respond to the theme the Stories of Clothes, with a focus relating to Hong Kong, the Greater Bay Area and China. The fellowship encourages projects rooted in object-based research which explore the meaning of clothes, questioning what our clothing reveals about us from the complex and intricate relationship we have with our bodies to the ways in which their design, production and disposal shape our world. Inspired by Saidiya Hartman’s methodology of approaching archives, the fellow might explore how ‘counter-narratives that recover the insurgent ground of human lives’ can be found though fieldwork within and beyond the museum.
Rooted in research, the final creative output could be in any media but practitioners are asked to consider the suitability of their project for a 6-month installation in a public building. Please note that the production costs for the outcome are included in the fellowship funding.
Budget & Support
The successful candidate will be awarded $275,000 HKD to support their time, travel expenses, accommodation and production costs of a new work to be installed at V&A East. Fellows can be based anywhere around the world, with at least 3 weeks of research to take place at V&A East Storehouse.
The fellowship includes mentorship from a topic expert (selected after a practitioner has been selected), as well as support from V&A East curatorial staff.
Submission & Selection
This open call runs from July 3rd 2025 – August 22nd 2025. Applications close at midnight on August 22nd 2025 UK Time.
Applicants will be asked to submit in English:
- a research plan and conceptual proposal for a new work to be displayed at V&A East (no more than 500 words and up to 5 images);
- a budget of how they would allocate $275,000 HKD;
- and a CV (no more than 500 words).
Please send your submissions to designtrustfellowship@vam.ac.uk.
Applications will be reviewed collectively by members of the V&A East team and Design Trust team. The team may choose to shortlist a small group of applicants and conduct interviews.
The finalist will be determined by September at the latest.
Fellowship timeline
- Midnight, Monday August 22nd UK time: Deadline for applications
- September 2025: Fellow appointed
- October to December 2025: Research phase
- January to March 2026: Concept Development
- April to September 2026: Production and installation of new work
- October 2026 to March 2027: Commission Display
About V&A East (https://www.vam.ac.uk/east)
V&A East comprises of two new sister sites in London's Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. V&A East Storehouse is your access all areas experience of the V&A collection. Go behind the scenes and take your own path through the worlds of art, design, performance, fashion and more. With galleries, exhibitions and events spotlighting the people, ideas and creativity shaping global culture right now, V&A East Museum is your place to meet, find inspiration and fresh ideas. Opening in east London, spring 2026.
Design Trust Graphic Archive Research Fellowship examines the origins, emergence, and development of the graphic design profession in Hong Kong and the region between 1945 and 1985. Design Trust proudly partners with HKDI to support this fellowship which will culminate in an exhibition planned for 2028.
From 2024 to 2026, three fellowships will be awarded consecutively to conduct a portion of the research project under an overarching theme, focusing on the different aspects of or sub-themes of graphic design. Attached to HKDI’s Graphic Archive for six months, each Fellow will work independently on their assigned sub-theme, but also with HKDI staff and students, with opportunities to be mentored by a panel of world-renowned experts on the subject.
Eligibility
Applicants are required to have attained the following qualifications:
- a degree qualification in communication design, graphic design, visual communication, design history, design culture and theory, art history, curatorial practices or a related discipline, preferably with a post-graduate qualification;
- at least three years of working experience in a related area including a combination of design practice, teaching, research, and/or exhibitions;
- excellent research and writing skills;
- demonstrated experience in at least one of these areas: (1) graphic design (2) exhibition design (3) curatorial work (4) teaching; and,
- legal status (citizenship or visa) to base in Hong Kong for the whole fellowship period.
Stipend
The project budget for each Fellow is a total of HKD400,000 including stipend for the six-month fellowship period and a production fee for a publication, a small-scale display, and the production of a teaching and learning package.
Third Fellowship Period
Nov 2025–April 2026
Deliverables
At the end of the Fellowship period, each Fellow is required to deliver:
- A text of minimum 5,000 words for exhibition purposes. (format: a coherent juxtaposition of images and text presented in book format)
- A small-scale display of artefacts juxtaposed coherently with didactic texts, in collaboration with Design Trust’s public programmes.
- A collection of artefacts catalogued. (format: a digital database with scanned images, metadata and textual descriptions shared on a cloud service)
- A teaching and learning package at higher diploma level (format: at QF level 4; open; as printed worksheets/kit, webpages, videos, slide decks, as the fellow sees fit)
- A public presentation and talk
Review Process
The fellowship will be awarded on a competitive basis by a selection panel chaired by Hong Kong Design Institute comprising representatives from Design Trust, Hong Kong Design Institute as well as invited experts. After the initial screening process, shortlisted candidates will be invited to an interview.
How to Apply
Interested applicants please submit the following items via email to Ms Kiki Yau at hkdi-ccd@vtc.edu.hk with the email subject “Application for Research Fellow” by 5 September 2025:
- A one-page letter of intent
- A full curriculum vitae showing education background, employment history, publications and exhibition record
- Two academic references from previous teachers or employers
- A portfolio of previous research, writing, graphic design, or curatorial work
- A 1,000-word research outline on your proposed research topic that falls within the overarching research theme (i.e. packaging, advertising or publishing)
Please prepare the above documents in English. Use of Traditional Chinese for supplementary purposes is welcomed.
Submit as five separate PDF documents named in this format:
Surname_GivenName_1_letter
Surname_GivenName_2_cv
Surname_GivenName_3_references
Surname_GivenName_4_portfolio
Surname_GivenName_5_outline
Notification
Interviews will be held during September 2025. Results will be announced by October 2025. Applicants not notified within four weeks from the application deadline may consider their application unsuccessful. Design Trust and Hong Kong Design Institute reserve the right not to fill the post.
*Please note that the appointed Fellow will not be considered a full-time employee of Hong Kong Design Institute (HKDI) nor the Vocational Training Council (VTC).
Contact
If you have any questions about the application process, please contact hkdi-ccd@vtc.edu.hk
About Hong Kong Design Institute (HKDI)
Hong Kong Design Institute (HKDI), as one of the member institutions under the VTC Group, is one of the most influential design institutions in Hong Kong. It provides high-quality education to cultivate knowledge and professionalism, nurturing design talents to support Hong Kong’s creative industry development.
With years of experience in design education, HKDI brings together the strengths of its design departments – Architecture, Interior and Product Design, Communication Design, Digital Media and Fashion and Image Design – to provide over 20 full-time design programmes, preparing students for work-readiness with socially conscious solutions to meet the demand of the 21st century workplace.
HKDI strives to provide flexible and diversified pathways from Higher Diploma to one-year Bachelor degrees conferred by reputable universities in the UK, or degree programmes offered by local universities, as well as continuing education programmes leading to postgraduate qualifications. Through an established network with over 40 overseas design institutions, HKDI students are connected to the world through international exchange and project collaboration.
About Graphic Archive
The Graphic Archive at the Hong Kong Design Institute is a reference library that preserves, records, and makes available graphic design artefacts of historical significance for teaching and research purposes. Through learning and teaching activities, research studies and exhibitions, the Graphic Archive aims to interrogate artefacts, identify practices, investigate contexts, generate insights that would enable us to innovate for the future. With contributions from designers and collectors, the Archive’s collections trace the evolution of Hong Kong’s graphic design profession from the 1930s to the present day.
The M+ / Design Trust Research Fellowship programme has supported original research projects investigating design and architecture in Hong Kong, the Greater Bay Area, and Asia. In addition to expanding the current body of knowledge in these areas, the findings from the fellowship will inform research on the existing collection, future acquisitions, and other programmes at M+.
The fellowships engage in advanced research on historical or contemporary topic related to architecture, graphic design, industrial design, and urbanism or cross-disciplinary developments, taking into consideration the region’s cultural, social, economic, and political conditions as well as its international and cross-cultural knowledge networks.
Design Trust would like to thank Lars Nittve, Aric Chen, Marisa Yiu and Alan Lo for establishing the programme in 2014. The fellowship programme has concluded with the public talks from Leah Hsiao and Flora Weil in February 2025. An online archive of the fellowship research will be launched in 2026.
List of Fellows (2015-2025):
About M+
M+ is a museum dedicated to collecting, exhibiting, and interpreting visual art, design and architecture, moving image, and Hong Kong visual culture of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. In Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Cultural District, we are building one of the largest museums of modern and contemporary visual culture in the world, with a bold ambition to establish ourselves as one of the world’s leading cultural institutions. Our aim is to create a new kind of museum that reflects our unique time and place, a museum that builds on Hong Kong’s historic balance of the local and the international to define a distinctive and innovative voice for Asia’s twenty-first century.
Design Trust/ Royal College of Art Fellowship in Design Curation supports individuals based in Hong Kong or the Greater Bay Area region, and addresses the burgeoning field of design curating in a global context. Based at the Royal College of Art in London, the Fellow(s) undertake advanced research into curatorial practice in relation to contemporary design and recent design history.
List of Fellows:
About Royal College of Art (RCA)
The Royal College of Art, the internationally renowned art and design university, provides students with unrivalled opportunities to deliver art and design projects that transform the world. A small, specialist and research-intensive postgraduate university based in the heart of London, the RCA is a high performing institution, a radical traditionalist in a fast paced world. The RCA was named the world's leading university of art and design in the QS World Rankings 2019 for the fifth consecutive year. www.rca.ac.uk