FutureDesignEd

FutureDesignEd is a project of the University of Bologna Design Programmes (Advanced Design Research Unit).

The first edition of the FutureDesignEd Symposium “Innovation in Design Education – Innovation in Education by Design” took place in 2017 at the Opificio Golinelli in Bologna, thanks to the curatorship of Flaviano Celaschi (Full Professor, Università di Bologna), Elena Formia (Associate Professor, Università di Bologna) and Omar Vulpinari (Research Consultant and Adjunct Professor, Università di Bologna).

This day shown the results of the ongoing research project, whose primary interest was to study the future of the design schools and the future of education in a broader sense through design.

Moreover, it gave voice to testimonies of protagonists from all over the world, by highlighting the strategies and motivations behind the innovation excellence in the didactic curricula of design universities, but also to the alternative training realities based on approaches and tools from the cultures of design.

Since 2017, FutureDesignEd has been focusing on studying the Innovation in Design Education and the Innovation in Education by Design.

It operates through:

• an international symposium that takes place every two/three years in a host University (the first was the Università di Bologna, the second will be the Università della Repubblica di San Marino), assuming a different thematic connotation coherent with the general aim of the project;
• a community of 100 international observers and experts, involved in reporting experiences that relate to design-driven educational processes (this is called permanent observatory);
• a social-media platform to promote the symposium and the research project but also to inform and engage students, citizens, educators, researchers, practitioners, businesses and all other stakeholders regarding educational processes and transformations in which design is interpreted as an innovation factor.