Cumulus partnership to advance systemic design

Cumulus partnership to further art and design education and research

SDA and Cumulus have set out on a five-year partnership to advance awareness and practice of systemic design. The announcement is an opportunity to spotlight Cumulus and some of our partners in the Cumulus network.

Founded in 1990, Cumulus International Association of Universities and Colleges of Art, Design and Media is the leading global association to serve art and design education and research. Cumulus was organized as a network, supported by the EU Erasmus program, until 1996. Cumulus held its first General Assembly in 2001 in Rotterdam, and in 2006, Cumulus was established as an international association.

The Cumulus partnership

Cumulus builds and maintains a dynamic and flexible network of educational institutions from all parts of the world. Like SDA, Cumulus collaborates with art, design and media institutions, and more broadly, industry, business, not-for-profit and social purpose organisations. Today, the Cumulus network consists of 40 partners and 360 member institutions from 63 countries.

Therefore, Cumulus is an expansive network of academic institutions and international professional organisations. It is also a global association that works as a forum for partnership and transfer of knowledge and learned practices. It’s worth keeping an eye on the many Cumulus initiatives and conferences. Of note is the call for Relate North 2021: Everyday Extremes, the 9th Annual Symposium & Exhibition hosted at Tomsk, Siberia, November 11/12, 2021. The Arctic Sustainable Arts and Design (ASAD) Network and the University of Lapland are organisers. Cumulus Green is a student competition organised every two years in alignment with the United Nations SDG program. In 2022 the focus is “Nurturing our Planet”, inviting students from Cumulus member institutions to focus on SDG2: Zero Hunger.

The ecosystem of art and design education

The announcement expresses the promise of this partnership. Cumulus states, “Each contributes in different and important ways to our association’s vision to continue creating new channels and spaces for our members to have access to the enriching global ecosystem of art and design education that characterise our disciplines today”. The same announcement includes a new partnership with the DISUR network of design careers in Latin American universities and the renewal of the DESIS Network, Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability.

The DISUR network represents more than 70 design programs, addressing higher education design teaching, with some crossover goals with SDA such as: “The promotion of research in design, including the processes of innovation, adaptation and technological, scientific, artistic and cultural transfer in areas of interest.”

The well-known DESIS Network – Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability – advances design for social innovation through design schools as agents of change. DESIS Labs are academics, researchers and students who orient their design and research activities towards social innovation. For example, RSD9 host, the National Institute of Design, established the NID DESIS Lab (led by Shashank Mehta). The systems map, Equation of Craft in India, is a NID DESIS Lab design research project.

Indeed, it’s thanks to the collective support of members that SDA is part of the Cumulus partnership – and that we have the opportunity to advance academic research in systems change in an international forum framework.