New BEDA Board 2012-2014

At its General Assembly hosted by Cité du design in Saint-Étienne on Friday 09th March, the BEDA Members elected the new Board for the term 2012 to 2014. Nine new members were elected from a list of twelve candidates.

Joining the current President Deborah Dawton (DBA, UK) and Vice President Isabel Roig (Barcelona Design Centre), the full Board is as follows (in alphabetical order):

Robin Edman, SVID, (Sweden)
Severin Filek, former BEDA President, Design Austria, (Austria)
Ilona Gurjanova, Estonian Association of Designers, (Estonia)
Salla Heinänen, Ornamo, (Finland)
Kitty De Jong, BNO, (Netherlands)
Christina Melander, Danish Design Centre, (Denmark)
Michal Stefanowski, SPFP, Association of Industrial Designers, (Poland)
Szonja Szesztai, Hungarian Design Council, (Hungary)
Ingrid Vandenhoudt, Secretary, Design Flanders, (Belgium)

Following the election, I had the opportunity to run a workshop session for the development of strategy thinking as a contribution to the work of the European Design Leadership Board which will be reporting in June 2012.

Congratulations to the new Board Members.

How to Grow - Creative Industries initiative

Have a look at the new and rapidly expanding website for small and creative enterprises wishing to grow in Europe. During the last week of February they ran the 'Know How Programme' - a series of streamed lectures and interactive sessions for the Creative Industries. I had the chance to give one of the webcasts and I believe these will be appearing online in due course.

The site is also a portal for the Creative Industries in Europe and you can find useful information on the recently launched Creative Industries Alliance. The link allows you to access information on European programmes for the creative industries as well as on the Policy Learning Platform.

National Design Centre for France

Eric BESSON announces the launch of a design action plan and the creation of a National Design Centre.




This news sent to me yesterday by Moira Moreira of APCI following the announcement by the French Economy Minister at the closing day of the APCI conference back on 9th January.

Quoting from the information provided,

"The creation of a National Design Centre, much like its English, Danish or Korean equivalents, would make for a lever leading to exemplary design policies as well as a French design promotion tool.

Created from the APCI in liaison with all design players, it will aim to assert the strategic role of design in the economy, improve the competitiveness of French companies thanks to the introduction of design in their strategy and enable design professions to develop.

The Ministry of Industry will support this project’s launch with 1 million euros worth of funding."

Congratulations to Anne Marie Boutin and the whole team at APCI on making this important step happen for the integration of design strategy at the national level for France.

This is is good news for design in Europe.