The central contention of interest is the hitherto under-exploration of the role that performance knowledge could play in relation to understanding design, the practice of designing and its outcomes. The Cluster will function both as a virtual network and in real time. It aims to make a significant contribution to the onward development of the Designing for the 21st Century initiative beyond 2005. Its areas of interest include: Performance and other theoretical modelling of the Performance/Design relationship; Performance modelling of total design processes (for example rhetorics; spaces; social dramas, participatory processes, etc) as aid to designers and communities; Performative interventions onto institutionalised design processes (for example, on-line interactions, communications processes); Performative interventions into and animations of design contexts (urban planning, community development, cultural planning, etc.); Provocative installations; community dramas and figurings (either as consultation or staged provocation); Design for performance itself (interventions and animations). The EPSRC and AHRB, as major funders of research, are seeking to make a long-term investment in the development of a design research culture for the UK. The initial investment in 21 Research Clusters is designed to encourage the development of this research culture and to identify priorities for future development. The Research Clusters initiative is designed to be a time-limited (2005 calendar year) spring-board to future activity. The starting-point for the development of the Clusters are the three following over-lapping themes: 1. PEOPLE WORKING IN DESIGN Communication and cultures in an inter-disciplinary environment Enhancing understanding across the design disciplines Understanding skills, competencies, working methodologies and functional inter-relationships between design research, design processes and product utilisation. 2. UNDERSTANDING CREATIVITY Exploration of the drivers of creativity and innovation, together with an understanding of their drivers, frameworks and models Individual and social interaction in creative and innovative processes Creativity in embedded contexts, systems, styles of delivery and processes. 3. APPLICATION OF DESIGN IN PRACTICE Developing new interactions across and between design processes Generation of inspirational exemplars.		The Emergent Objects Design and Performance Research Cluster brings together researchers and practitioners from robotics, performance, new media, digital arts and urban regeneration to investigate the role that performance knowledge could play in relation to understanding design, the practice of designing and its outcomes.