This paper will focus on redefining design research education for the 21 Cth by reviewing seminal theoretical work in the field of design by Archer (1968), Cross (1983), Jones (1970), and contemporary critiques such as Herriott (2019), or Galdon & Hall (2019). In this context, we will contextualise critical issues emerging from Christopher Frayling’s seminal paper Research in art and design. By implementing an historical account into previous work, we will understand why Frayling did what he did, why he articulated his framework in the way he did, and the fundamental problems arising from it. In the process, building from previous work of the authors, this paper repositions the ontological nature of design knowledge around notions of prospectivity, abductivity, and probabilism. This position emancipates design from the present, thus overcoming the scientific/tacit paradigms, and liberates design to operate in its future-led prospective and transformational nature. This position aligns with Blauvert’s (2008), third wave of design focused on a multiplicity of contingent, boundaried and conditional solutions.