In the framework of the RegionArts project, University of Lapland hosted a dissemination event and the 2nd Local Stakeholder Group meeting on May 30th 2019 as part of Cumulus 2019 Conference (serving as an international forum for art and design education and research). The events were held at the University of Lapland, Rovaniemi. The goal of the events was to bring knowledge of the project and gather insight from international to local level on why and how to enhance information and communications technology with art and design collaboration and competitiveness.
According to the Cumulus program theme, the dissemination event included a general introduction of service design at SINCO, service design lab by the Faculty of Art and Design at the University of Lapland. With the RegionArts project presentation as well as an interactive workshopping session the ICT was brought into the mix. Participants consisted of representatives from various international organisations around the field of art and design research and education. The initial focus was on ‘Why service design?’ from which the focus was shifted to ‘Why art, design and ICT?’. On first the main topics brought out can be summarised especially on benefits for human centeredness and sustainability. The need for these was deemed to be more and more important while we are moving more and more from product-oriented world to a service-oriented one. Whereas in the latter case, the focus was on how art and design would bring benefit in the world of ICT through the more pervasive implementation of human centredness, sustainable development and general creative approach. This again was seen more and more important with the world going not only more service-oriented but also digital.
In the Local Stakeholder Group meeting after this, the general project activities of RegionArts and deliverables of the previous dissemination event workshopping were presented. After this, the focus was on discussion with the stakeholders on the needs and possibilities at the local level. Participants included representatives from public business development, RDI and educational organisations – including the targeted regional funding instrument holder – as well as SMEs and sole traders. The clear main focus of the discussion was on funding needs and possibilities. With the stakeholders present the discussion was very fruitful offering valuable insights from different perspectives.
Altogether, the dissemination event together with the Local Stakeholder Group event provided a wide range of insights on art, design and ICT collaboration from international to local level as well as from research to the practical level. Based on this knowledge the University of Lapland will add on the mapping of needs and possibilities for enhancing the collaboration and competitiveness of relative fields.
