Latest news from Loughborough University

5 Sep 2014

Loughborough to stage international design conference

Loughborough University is set to host the 17th International Conference on Engineering and Product Design Education in 2015.

The conference will be staged by the Design School on September 3-4 in partnership with the Design Education Special Interest Group (DESIG) of the Design Society, and the Institution of Engineering Designers.

It is expected to attract between 150 and 250 delegates from education, design practice, industry and government agencies that have an interest in developing new approaches in design education.

Most will be from Europe but some will be from as far afield as North America, Australia and New Zealand.

Dr Guy Bingham, a senior lecturer at the Design School, and three colleagues are attending the 16th two-day annual conference at the University of Twente in the Netherlands which starts today, Friday, September 5.

During the handover Dr Bingham will make a presentation about the Loughborough conference, including showing a promotional video of the university.

Dr Bingham said that being able to stage such a prestigious conference for the first time was an honour for Loughborough University.

He added: “It’s a long-standing conference that operates a home and away policy, so it’s only held in Britain once every two years. It’s important for the university.”

The theme of the Loughborough conference will be ‘Great Expectations: Design Teaching, Research and Enterprise’, and delegates will be able to debate the ever-increasing expectations placed on academics and students in a design context.

Dr Bingham said the aim of the conference was to not only address the challenge of high expectations but also to encourage a more rigorous approach to design research.

He said: “We are the leading institution in the country for design research.

“So we would like to disseminate some of our best practice into the 2015 conference.

“We want to concentrate on the expectations surrounding design education, teaching and enterprise; to provide a forum to discuss these important issues and inform the developments of future strategies for their effective management.”

Further information will be available on the website in the next few weeks.

To visit the website log on to: http://www.iepde.org/epde15/index.html

Article reference number: September News