https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2105-5022
Professor Elio Caccavale’s teaching practice, scholarship, and research contribute to the ethical, social, and environmental dimensions of scientific knowledge and technology, as well as to the field of More-than-Human Design.
He is the co-editor, with Professor Gordon Hush, of the forthcoming volume Design Beyond the Human: Transdisciplinary Conversations About the Planet (Bloomsbury, 2026). This collection of essays by international scholars, designers, and engaged citizens invites reflection on how design - understood in a more-than-human way - might reimagine its relationship with capitalism and contemporary lifestyles.
Elio’s research projects have been exhibited internationally, including at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, the Museum of Contemporary Design and Applied Arts in Lausanne, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts in Taipei, the Royal Institution in London, the Science Museum in London, and the Triennale Design Museum in Milan. MoMA has acquired his work into its permanent design collection in recognition of his contribution to practice-based design research.
Elio’s teaching and research engage with a range of interconnected themes, including interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity, science and society, STEAM education, emerging scientific knowledge and technologies, more-than-human design, planetary conversations, environmental education, and design dissent.
Elio’s research projects have been funded by a range of organisations, including the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, the Biochemical Society, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Young Academy of Scotland, the Physiological Society, the Wellcome Trust, Arts Council England, and the Spanish Ministry of Culture.
Interdisciplinarity, transdisciplinarity, science and society, STEAM education, emerging scientific knowledge and technologies, more-than-human design, planetary conversations, environmental education, and design dissent.
Elio serves as Subject Lead for the MDes Design Innovation and Citizenship programme and contributes more broadly to teaching and administration across the MDes Design Innovation programmes.
The MDes Design and Innovation Citizenship programme extends beyond organisational structures to consider the impact of design on all living beings and ecological systems, recognising their ‘citizenship’ within a broader, more ecological understanding of society.
Elio is currently the External Examiner for the MA Design for Industry 5.0 Course at UAL, Central Saint Martins.
