We are please to launch a working paper arising from the event in April 2025: Civic and Place: Exploring the Role of the Civic in Art and Design which brought together researchers, educators, practitioners and community stakeholders to examine how art and design can shape, sustain, and animate civic life. The paper is co-authored by: Dr Rowan Bailey, Director of the Centre for Cultural Ecologies in Art, Design and Architecture, University of Huddersfield. Evelyn Wilson, co-Director of  National Centre for Academic and Cultural Exchange Dr Rhiannon Jones, Associate Professor (Civic Practice). Head of Civic and Communities, University of Derby. Professor...

The Skills for Planet Map by the Design Council is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 license We are looking for individuals and groups to present their work on Skills for Planet for our Innovations in Practice event on 22 October 2025. This could be how you are developing and delivering sustainability and critical green design skills in your practice and, ideally, adopting and aligning with the Design Council Skills for Planet Blueprint. This could be a short, ten minute presentation on - Creating a Green Design Skills Mindset and Influencing Green Behaviour Circular Design and Embedding a Circular Economy Learning from Nature, Biodiversity...

Last year the Design Council launched its Skills for Planet Mission: to upskill 1 million designers with green design skills by 2030. Given that students are the designers of tomorrow, as HE agenda setters we have a key role to play in providing them with the critical green skills they need to design responsibly.These skills are outlined in the Skills for Planet Blueprint. Whether you have started on your journey to embed green design skills into your curricula or not, the Blueprint is a resource that can help you get started or validate your existing work. We are...

Free Download here The FACE Race Handbook is a vital resource delivering cultural competency for our allies, whilst confronting anti-Blackness in our art and design institutions. Acknowledging that white privilege and race are rarely spoken about in the workplace and beyond, FACE encourages its allies to interrogate privilege and racial bias through regular meetings with Black and racially minoritised FACE colleagues. This practice has facilitated a growing network of culturally confident educators evolving together in anti-racist work that centres recruitment, progression, curriculum and culture. Compiled by FACE Members and Associates up and down the country, The FACE Race Handbook communicates...

The education landscape across level 3 qualifications that lead into Higher Education is being reformed. UAL are hosting a webinar specifically for Higher Education Institutions to share: Details of these reforms. Actions being undertaken by UALAB. How Higher Education Institutions can prepare for these changes. The webinar is aimed at HEIs that take learners with UAL Level 3 qualifications onto their undergraduate programmes. The information will be particularly relevant for staff members involved in the recruitment of, and entry requirements for, learners joining their courses. The webinar will be hosted remotely via Zoom and is entirely free of charge. We...

This blog is the second in a series and has kindly been provided by Vanessa Corby Professor Theory, History and Practice of ArtYork St John University The State and art & design education in England: Part One, ‘Rip-Off Degrees’, the poverty of expectations for the discipline and neoliberalism When I say there is a poverty of expectations for art and design educational outcomes in this country, I’m not saying anything that the discipline doesn’t already know. The present impoverishment of the National Curriculum and its effects were foretold in Bob and Roberta Smith’s Letter to Michael Gove MP, 25 January...

CUMULUS CONFERENCE DETROIT 2022 Blog post kindly provided by Detroit Sustainability Business Network (SBN) Cumulus Holds Global Design for Adaptation Conference in Detroit at the College for Creative Studies. Attended by Designers, Educators, and Researchers from Around the World working Toward Creating a Sustainable and Humane Future Cumulus, a global association of art and design education and research, held its annual conference, Design for Adaptation in Detroit Nov. 1-4 at the College for Creative Studies. This marks only the second time in its 30-year history that the conference was in North America. Cumulus connects 350 member institutions across 63 countries...

Announcing The FACE Summit: Thursday 13th October 5-8pm (GMT) & Friday 14th October 11.30 am-7pm (GMT) a FREE event to platform research on identity, power, representation and belonging. This is an intersectional fashion platform led by Black and Brown Academics for all. Blog post kindly provided by Caryn Franklin, FACE.This event is for EVERYONE The FACE Summit offers inspiration and practical teaching aids for required culturally competent delivery of education. The FACE Summit is both a live and online event hosted from the heart of London at Central St Martins in Kings Cross. Students especially welcome. This Summit will...

Cultures of Place, a new festival programme from the School of Arts and Humanities at the University of Huddersfield. Working in collaboration with Temporary Contemporary and Kirklees Council to deliver a range of events drawing on research from across the school including: art, architecture, creative writing, cultural studies, design, English literature, fashion, film, history, media, music, performance and textiles. This will run from 24 June – 4 July. Everything is free to attend, and projects range from music made with the light from stars and workshops showing you how to build an electrical circuit into fabric to exploring the canal...