Design research emerged as a recognisable field of study in the 1960s, initially marked by a conference on Design methods at Imperial College London, in 1962. It led to the founding of the Design Research Society (DRS) in 1966. John Christopher Jones (one of the initiators of the 1962 conference) founded a postgraduate Design Research Laboratory at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, and L. Bruce Archer supported by Misha Black founded the postgraduate Department of Design Research at the Royal College of Art, London, becoming the first Professor of Design Research.