The future of EAD: rejecting dogma through providing safe spaces for insightful reflection
As part of the ongoing growth of the European Academy of Design (EAD) as a design research organisation fit for now and the future, it was an enormous pleasure to connect with the design research community through a series of three events.
Event 1- EAD is 30 years old: how can the culture and heritage of EAD help design research flourish in the next 30 years?
Event 2 – Not business as usual: our challenges in design research and society: surveying ongoing agendas.
Event 3 – Discussing tactical responses to authoritarianism.
With participants as far east as Japan and as far west as the pacific coast of Mexico, these events were an opportunity to come together and discuss some of the most pressing issues in design research and start to reimagine how design research can be a positive force in society and how EAD can continue to be responsive in supporting the needs of design researchers. It was heartening to see the insightful contributions from academics ranging from PhD students to semi-retired senior professors of design research and all points in between. A heartfelt thank you to everyone who contributed, you really made this a special series of events.
One of the clear outcomes of these events is that there is an appetite for more activities that provide a safe, supportive and productive space for nuanced exploration and debate. Where contrasting ideas can be explored in a positive mutually respectful context, where polarisation and dogma are alien.
As such, we are planning a programme of monthly events to build on the success of these three activities. We will be publishing an invitation to these free events on the EAD website; if you would prefer a more active notification, please join our Linked In group.
Thank you to all of EAD for continuing to make us the agile, responsive kind organisation that we are. And lastly, we have exciting news about the next EAD peer-reviewed academic conference coming up very soon: again, watch this space.
President of EAD: Leon Cruickshank a Professor of Design and Creative Exchange and a founding member of ImaginationLancaster at Lancaster University. His research focuses on the development of open and co-design processes in the private, public and voluntary sectors. Currently he is working on giving communities a stronger voice in an equitable move to sustainability. Past projects include leading the £12 million Beyond Imagination project and the £1.2 million Leapfrog project looking at new forms of working creatively outside academia. He has consulted for the UN on innovation in government with a focus on open design thinking. He is widely published in co-design, open design, engagement and citizen-led design. Books include ‘Open Innovation, Facilitating Creativity in Everyone’ and his latest co-edited book ‘Flourish By Design’ published by Routledge available is available as an open access publication here 
Vice President of EAD: Deana McDonagh is a Professor of Industrial Design in the School of Art and Design and founder of the (dis)Ability Design Studio at the Beckman Institute of Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She is a Health Innovation Professor at the Carle Illinois School of Medicine and is bringing empathic modelling into the training of medical students to ensure patient inspired innovation. As Empathic Design Research Strategist who focuses on enhancing quality of life for all through more intuitive and meaningful products, leading to emotional sustainability. She concentrates on the emotional user-product relationships and how empathy can bring the designer closer to users’ authentic needs, ensuring both functional and emotional needs are met by products.
Vice President of EAD: Heitor Alvelos is Full Professor of Design at the University of Porto, Portugal, and Director of ID+ Research Center @ U.Porto, where he coordinates the Unexpected Media Lab and serves as Course Director for the PhD in Design program. Heitor chaired EAD’09, The Endless End, in Porto in 2011. Professional experience includes serving as Chairman of the Scientific Board (HSS) for the Foundation for Science and Technology (Portugal) from 2016 to 2022, Curator of the FuturePlaces Media Lab for Citizenship (2008-2017), Outreach Director of the UTAustin-Portugal Program for Digital Media (2010-2014) and Senior Tutor of the Drawing Studio of the Royal College of Art (1999 – 2001). Heitor is a member of Academia Europaea and the European Science Foundation, and has coordinated various research projects on a national and international level since 2007. Current research interests include communication of science in contemporary crisis scenarios, and the pedagogy of perception.
