Conference Aim

The E&PDE conference will bring together representatives from education and industry who have an interest in sharing new perspectives on design education. The conference will provide a forum for educators, practitioners and students from product development, engineering and industrial design, together with industry to discuss current educational issues and the nature of design education now and in the future.

This year’s conference theme Design Education & Human Technology Relations emphasises the influence of technology on human behaviour and vice-versa. The conference aim is to reflect on the bipolarity of the challenge that contemporary designers and engineers face when shaping our future because the development of new technology cannot be meaningful unless there are users that successfully adapt the products and services to their own lives. It is important that designers and those involved in teaching the subject explore interrelationships and dependancies between engineering & technology on the one hand and human behaviour, society, cultural and ethical issues on the other. The conference aims to:

• Provide a networking platform for a wide variety of participants.
• Explore how engineering and product design education contributes to a balanced development of technological opportunities and the needs of people for future society.
• Discuss how engineering and product design education can lead to meaningful products for a world that is mediated by technology.
• Explore how the focus on human technology relations can contribute to the development of creativity and design success.
• Discuss how design education may best be used to address the social and ethical aspects of technology.

These aims will be addressed through the following conference topics:

• Assessment in engineering and design education
• Design education in practice
• Design methodology in education
• Best practice in design education
• Design education in business and industry
• Creativity in design education
• Integrating innovation in design education curricula
• Teaching ethics in engineering and design
• Behavioural sciences in design education
• Design education and design cultures
• Social aspects of design education
• Research networks for design educators
• Professional perspectives for design students
• Technology transfer through design
• International collaboration

In keeping with the inclusive ethos of the E&PDE conference and to broaden the opportunities to link design and business by creativity and innovation other stream proposals are welcomed. We invite you to send your proposals for other relevant topics to ied@ied.org.uk.