From the existing results, on the one hand, foreign research focuses on utility (case studies), less involved in theoretical analysis; on the other hand, China's design policy research is in the digestion stage of foreign research results, and the basic theory construction has just started. In this context, this paper introduces some ideas of the design policy research carried out by the team of the National Social Science Foundation Art Key Project of China "Research on Chinese and Foreign Design Policies and National Design Promotion Institutions" (2018). This paper also attempts to use theoretical tools such as "conceptual history" and "problem domain" to initially demonstrate the What, Why and How of design policy research, and to initially explore the microstructure of design policy research, so as to establish the basic clues for theoretical discussion of design policy.