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I 2013 tok Nasjonalt senter for kunst og kultur i opplæringen (KKS), i samarbeid med lærerutdannere i fag­feltet, initiativ til opprettelsen av det som i dag er Nettverk for formgiving, kunst og håndverk i uni­vers­itets- og høgskolesektoren (KHUH). Siden opprettelsen har dette nettverket prioritert arbeid med årlige nettverks­konferanser for å styrke forskning og samarbeid innen fagfeltet. I denne artikkelen er Nettverkskonferansene i perioden 2014–2022 studert i lys av Lave og Wenger sin teori om ‘communities of practice’ – praksis­felles­skap, der faglig og organisatorisk legitim perifer deltakelse inngår i en helhet. Empirien gir oss grunnlag til å hevde at aktiviteten i praksisfellesskapet KHUH har vokst i denne perioden, ved at flere har fått adgang til slik deltakelse. Hele 288 pre­sen­ta­sjon­er, i form av paper, praksis­for­tel­ling­er eller poster har blitt pre­sen­tert, 20 personer har bidratt i ar­­beidsutvalg (AU) og 11 i viten­skap­elige ko­mi­teer (VK). KKS har mye av æren for nettverkets framgang og kontinuitet. Satsningen på KHUH – framfor et felles estetisk nett­verk – har vist seg å være en vellykket strategi.

This article presents an ongoing research project regarding blended education; Flexible Digital Class­room (FlexiDig), and a survey on full-time and part-time students’ experiences with blended education in a master’s degree programme in Art and Design Education. To optimise educational resources, the lectures for the full-time students were recorded, including the dialogue between the students and the lecturers, and made digitally available for all students. Generally, both the part- and full-time students participating in the questionnaire expressed their experience as “satisfactory” for the availability of the recorded lectures. Moreover, the capture of dialogues in the recording was found to be extremely useful for better understanding and learning, according to the students. This idea forms a basis to develop FlexiDig as simple as possible with a transfer value to other educational situations based on the approach of Student-Centered Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (SCLT).

In the current special issue, FormAkademisk, for the first time, will publish the complete proceedings of a conference. We are proud to announce that this will be the 1st Biennial International Conference for the Craft Sciences (BICCS, 2021), held on the 4–6th of May 2021 online, initiated by the Craft Laboratory, affiliated with the Department of Conservation, University of Gothenburg, Sweden. As a result of the Covid-19 situation, the conference will be held completely online. The special editor of this issue is Camilla Groth, who is also a member of our main editorial team. In addition, Tina Westerlund and Gunnar Almevik are members of this special issue editorial team (Groth et al., 2021).

The aims of the workshop where threefold: a) establish an international network on Design Literacy, b) articulate how network membership might support personal goals, c) share information regarding how the participants might contribute into the network in terms of research expertise, funding, networks. The workshop gathered a group of 21 international scholars who were interested in exploring the emerging area of the Design Literacy. Production and consumption are very much tight around human designed and made systems – how can citizens become aware of their vital role in shaping the world and support a better tomorrow for both people and planet? How does the uptake of design literacies evolve across diverse field of education (both universities and K12), policy development and commercial organisations?

FormAkademisk is in the process of financial support for the coming years to institutions that most frequently apply the journal as a publication channel. FormAkademisk is the only scientific journal in the Nordic countries that publishes articles in all the subject areas covered by the Professional Council for Design Education and the Professional Council for Architecture and Landscape Architecture Education in the Universities Norway (UHR). In addition, FormAkademisk publishes articles within design education from kindergarten to doctorate. The support from the Professional for design education, which was adopted at their meeting on October 13, 2008, was very important during the establishment period of the journal and in the process towards scientific approval at level 1 in 2008. When the journal is celebrating its 10th anniversary, the support is at least as important. FormAkademisk has also been nominated by the Professional Council for Design Education for level 2 in the Norwegian Publication Indicator (NPI).

FormAkademisk was invited to the Design Journal Editors' Meeting at the College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning (DAAP), University of Cincinnati in late October, as the only design research journal from the Nordic region. The meeting was organized in advance of the International Association of Societies of Design Research (IASDR) 2017 conference.Liv Merete Nielsen, who initiated the creation of FormAkademisk and has been a Section Editor since the start-up and I, who have been the Editor-in-Chief for the entire period, travelled to the meeting.FormAkademisk was in good company - among the others invited, we can mention the American Design Issues and the British Design Studies, both of which are at Level 2 of the Norwegian Science Index - NVI. Other reputable journals invited were the International Journal of Design from Taiwan, She Ji - The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation from Tongji University in Shanghai, China, Design and Culture from the United States, Co-Design from the United Kingdom, Information Design Journal published in the Netherlands with an international editorial board, Journal of Design, Business & Society with an international editorial board, the French Sciences du Design and Visible Language published at the University of Cincinnati, USA who hosted the meeting.First, we warmed up by describing each journal's editorial profile. For FormAkademisk we emphasized that we have two equal focuses – research in design, but also research in design education for the general public. This combination seems to be unique internationally.Common issues we discussed further were challenges with the quality of submitted articles and obtaining qualified peer reviewers. We also discussed whether we would agree on a common understanding of what it means to be included as an author of an article. Based on the discussions, FormAkademisk comes well prepared compared to the other internationally leading design research journals.After the meeting in Cincinnati, there have been lively discussions on email between those invited to the Design Journal Editors' Meeting in Cincinnati in October. We look forward to the next meeting to discuss common challenges for research journals in design and design education, especially in connection with the largest international design research conferences.We also want workshops in peer review and article writing. A common issue for the journals is finding good peer reviewers who can review the articles. We therefore encourage anyone who is asked to say yes. Keep in mind that for each article you submit for review, there are two peer reviewers who stand up for you!

This chapter focuses on how the vernacular clothing designed and made by Inupiaq women can be seen as a form of sustainable fashion. The concept of vernacular design allows for an understanding and appreciation of designs created without access to institutional qualifications. Today, there are two primary Inupiaq vernacular garments: the cloth or fabric atigi for outdoor use, which is a kind of parka; and the atikluk for indoor use, which is a kind of dress for women and shirt for men. The practical material object – the atigi parka – functions in a somewhat social arena, creating an aesthetic impression. Today the fur has been replaced with a lining of a thick, high-quality synthetic quilted lining similar to that used by polar explorers or bought sheepskin. The people of Kaktovik have all the facilities common in Western societies, including contemporary frame houses, cars, satellite TV, electronic goods, stores, a post office, community house, and Western style clothing.

Interest in open access (OA) to scientific publications is steadily increasing, both in Norway and internationally. From the outset, FORMakademisk has been published as a digital journal, and it was one of the first to offer OA in Norway. We have since the beginning used Open Journal Systems (OJS) as publishing software. OJS is part of the Public Knowledge Project (PKP), which was created by Canadian John Willinsky and colleagues at the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia in 1998. The first version of OJS came as an open source software in 2001. The programme is free for everyone to use and is part of a larger collective movement wherein knowledge is shared. When FORMakademisk started in 2008, we received much help from the journal Acta Didactic (n.d.) at the University of Oslo, which had started the year before us. They had also translated the programme to Norwegian. From the start, we were able to publish in both Norwegian and English. Other journals have used FORMakademisk as a model and source of inspiration when starting or when converting from subscription-based print journals to electronic OA, including the Journal of Norwegian Media Researchers [Norsk medietidsskrift]. It is in this way that the movement around PKP works and continues to grow to provide free access to research. As the articles are OA, they are also easily accessible to non-scientists. We also emphasise that the language should be readily available, although it should maintain a high scientific quality. Often there may be two sides of the same coin. We on the editorial team are now looking forward to adopting the newly developed OJS 3 this spring, with many new features and an improved design for users, including authors, peer reviewers, editors and readers.

In addition to focusing on design research, design education from kindergarten to PhD is a primary focus of FORMakademisk. We consider the education of users, purchasers and decision makers in terms of design as equally important as the education of professional designers. It does not help that good design is made if it is not purchased and used. What most people learn in primary education is important, and here is curricula a foundation.The Department of Art, Design and Drama at Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences, in partnership with the interest organisation Art and Design in Education, planned this spring a debate on the future for the subject Art and Crafts in primary education. The main keynote speaker was Sven Ludvigsen, a professor of education at the University of Oslo and a chair of the committee that has studied basic education subjects against competency requirements for society and working life in the future. Additional keynote speakers were Eivind Moe, on behalf of the organisation Art and Design in Education, and Liv Merete Nielsen, on behalf of the undergraduate and graduate education for teacher education in Art and Design at the Department of Art, Design and Drama at Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences.We are keenly looking forward to the new curricula to be developed for basic education in the future. When it comes to Art and Crafts, it must involve a plan that paves the way for broad tasks that lead to “depth in learning”, and expertise on sustainability must be developed by working creatively with tools and materials in workshops at school. Expertise in design must be included in general education when it comes to preparing students to become users, future decision makers and buyers of design, while providing the basic skills for those who will choose a design-related profession in the future.Issue cover photo: Design by David Salafia

The concept of vernacular design allows for the understanding and the appreciation of designs created without recourse to institutional qualifications in the field of design. A study was undertaken of how North Alaska Inuit (Eskimo) women learn design—based on observations, interviews with seamstresses, and authorial participation in designing and sewing in conformity with North Alaska Inuit tradition, everything filmed on digital video. This has been the empirical basis for an interpretation inspired by the social learning theory of Wenger in his ‘Communities of Practice’, an approach that promises to be of particular relevance to future research into the learning of design because it stresses the social aspect of learning, important in investigations of the social process of designing. A main conclusion of this research is the importance of learning-by-watching, which will be of great importance in further research of the learning process of professional or academic design.

The Ludvigsen Committee (Ludvigsen-utvalget), which aims to assess primary and secondary educational subjects in terms of the competence Norwegian society and its working life will need in the future, has published an interim report entitled Pupils’ Learning in the School of the Future – A Knowledge Foundation (Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research, 2014). The committee wrote the following about arts and crafts: “That subject will contribute to personal development and simultaneously strengthen opportunities to participate in a democratic society, which can be seen as a desire to protect both individual-oriented and community-oriented training. The breadth of the subject can restrict the ability to delve into individual topics” (NOU 2014: 7, 2014, p. 89, our translation from Norwegian). This will be an important challenge for the team in the near future. The committee shall submit their principal report by June 2015.Practical work with materials must not be removed from primary school. It should be required that qualified teachers are employed on the lower grades. Practical/hands-on work can give the trades a boost, encourage students to choose vocations and prevent dropouts in vocational education programmes. We need skilled craftsmen in the future, and good teaching in Arts & Crafts in compulsory education could provide an important basis for both future craftsmen and customers of good craftsmen.

We share the fear of many teachers that practical, creative work may be abandoned in the subject of art and crafts in primary schools or in the programme for art, crafts and design studies in upper secondary schools in Norway. Current curricula do entail practical, creative work; so, this fear must come from sources outside these curricula. Some have argued that increased research in art, design and crafts contributes to the theorization of practice. We believe that this is a myth. In recent years, both master and doctoral theses within our field have had the opposite effect: They have helped to improve practice.

FORMakademisk is the only scientific journal in the Nordic countries that publishes articles in both design and design education. The modern education requirement for research-based teaching also applies to higher education in design and design education, which is the primary field of research published in the journal FORMakademisk. As a relatively young field of research, a great deal of research in design and design education is published as articles rather than monographs. The journal plays an important role as a source of research-based teaching and education, and the articles are used as part of the curricula at several institutions. The purpose of FORMakademisk is to build and strengthen design and design education as a research field of its own, to enhance existing design research fields, and to strengthen design education as a field in itself.Encouragement To maintain a permanent operation of FORMakademisk it is necessary to enter into long-term economic agreements with institutions that use the journal to publish or reference literature. We therefore wish to make a statement about the long-term support to FORMakademisk with these institutions as soon as possible. We encourage all our authors, peer reviewers, readers and especially the members of the editorial board to ask their institutions to provide financial resources and long-term agreements to support FORMakademisk when a letter is being sent to institutions as soon as possible.

Forste utgave av FORMakademisk, det nye forskningstidsskriftet for design og designdidaktikk, er na en realitet. Dette er en viktig begivenhet for fagmiljoet, ikke bare i Norge, men for hele Norden. Et akkreditert vitenskapelig tidsskrift med fagfellevurdering er et viktig bidrag i byggingen av design som et eget forskningsfelt, og na er det her!