Canterbury has designs on Europe

5 November 2004

Canterbury has designs on Europe

The University of Canterbury is a partner in a new education exchange programme which will enable New Zealand students to study interaction design in Europe.

Details of the new pilot programme, “Leonardo: A multi-national exploration in Interaction Design education and research”, have been announced by the Associate Education Minister (Tertiary Education) Steve Maharey. Canterbury University has developed the three-year programme with Waikato University, the Wanganui School of Design, the Universities of Lancaster and Nottingham in the UK, the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia and the Upper Austria University of Applied Sciences. At least 24 New Zealand students and a similar number of European post-graduates will take part in the exchange programme.

Steve Maharey says it will enable New Zealand students to bring home valuable international knowledge. “If New Zealand is to be a birthplace of world-changing people and ideas, we need to provide more opportunities for our emerging knowledge leaders to interact with other leading thinkers from around the world.”

Interaction design generally deals with improving the interfaces between machinery and people and the future focus is on accessing digital technology. The government is providing $200,000 annually for three years to fund New Zealand’s share of the pilot. New Zealand students who take part in the exchange programme will visit no less than two of the programme’s four EU partner institutions and spend up to a year in Europe.

ENDS

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