Edinburgh Napier University

  Since the publication of the first issue of our journal twelve months ago our team of creative practitioners and academics has expanded (see pages 32-39), as has our work with industry and the public sector. We have worked on several more SFC Innovation Voucher funded projects across a range of design disciplines including packaging design (pages 18-19), computer games concept development (pages 20-21), and furniture (pages 22-23), and are about to embark on more projects in the coming months including pet products and lighting design. We have also continued our work with Historic Scotland at Elgin Cathedral (pages 8-9) and are in the early stages of a new project with the Gridiron Theatre Company for the Edinburgh International Festival in August 2013.

Our expert members have continued to develop their own work, the excellence of which is shown in our annual staff exhibition. Our Research and Practice informs our teaching at both undergraduate and post-graduate levels, and we have also published articles and papers on design pedagogy.

In the coming year, as many of us will continue to work on KE and other practice based projects, a number of our members will be preparing research output for the
Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2014, which assesses research work from UK higher education institutions.