The paper “Generating Design Knowledge Without Doing Design:
The Design Researcher as Curator ”, co-authored by Pedro Antunes, LASIGE integrated member, received the Best Runner-Up Paper Award at the 21st International Conference on Design Science Research in Information Systems & Technology (DESRIST2026), held in Munich, Germany, from 9 to 10 June 2026.

This study analyzes several metaphors used by design science research. Metaphors structure how researchers engage with research, understand their role in the research community, establish legitimacy, contribute new knowledge, and enact rigor and relevance in their work. It proposes a new metaphor in which the researcher acts as a curator of design knowledge and experience generated within the practice community and usually shared on blogging platforms. Curation is particularly relevant in highly volatile, practice-driven, and problem-solving domains, with important knowledge contributions emerging from ‘war stories’, episodes, practical examples, anecdotal evidence, and what-if/how-to assertions.

This unique form of engagement enables researchers to rapidly generalize knowledge emerging from recent practices and technologies. Beyond discussing the curator metaphor, the study also contributes a blueprint for the curation process, along with an example case. The paper is available here.