On October 10, 2025, Peter Sörries successfully defended his dissertation titled »I'm a Designer, so Why Research? Cultivating a Value-Sensitive Design Practice through Research« @ Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design Halle.

Examiners: Prof. Dr. Pablo Abend (BURG) & Prof. Dr. Claudia Müller-Birn (HCC, Freie Universität Berlin)

Since 2020, Peter Sörries has been a researcher at the HCC, where he has been developing his doctoral thesis. His dissertation investigates how research methods can be blended into design practice to preserve the strengths of both disciplines while complementing each other.

Situated at the intersection of design studies, human-computer interaction, and design practice, his work explores how participatory value elicitation can be embedded into design processes. Following a research-through-design approach, Peter developed and refined a method for participatory value elicitation grounded in value-sensitive design and participatory design.

The research led to the development of the »be part« toolkit. This toolkit serves as a practical resource for designers, researchers, and other practitioners to reflect on values throughout their design processes.