As CIRRUS prepares to gather in Lahti on 7–9 October 2026, we return to a city that welcomed the network’s rectors and coordinators in September 2010. Sixteen years later, this year’s meeting at LAB University of Applied Sciences offers an opportunity to look back at the discussions, encounters and shared work that have brought us here.

Founded in 1990, CIRRUS has a history extending well beyond the programmes and correspondence gathered for this retrospective. The records from 2007 onwards offer a reminder of how colleagues across the Nordic and Baltic region have come together to discuss design education, exchange teaching experience and address common challenges.

Teachers’ meetings have been an important part of that history. In Oslo in 2007, colleagues considered “The New Future of MA: How to Reinvent the Wheel”, followed in 2008 by discussions about design education in rapidly changing times. Umeå hosted a symposium on professionalism in Master’s design education in 2009, while Reykjavík’s 2010 meeting explored curriculum development in a post-crisis world. The teachers’ meetings series continued in Tallinn in 2011 and Copenhagen in 2012.

There have also been more focused opportunities to work together: a teachers’ meeting alongside the student camp in Kolding in 2014, and a Drawing Teachers’ Seminar jointly hosted by AHO and KHiO in Oslo in 2015.

The annual network meetings have taken colleagues across the region. During the 2010s, hosts welcomed us to the Institute of Design and Fine Arts at Lahti University of Applied Sciences in Lahti (2010), Oslo National Academy of the Arts (KHiO) in Oslo (2011), HDK – School of Design and Crafts, and Steneby in Gothenburg and Dals Långed (2012), Design School Kolding in Kolding (2013), Konstfack in Stockholm (2014), Iceland Academy of the Arts in Reykjavík (2015), University of Lapland in Rovaniemi (2016), Vilnius Academy of Arts in Vilnius (2017), OsloMet – Oslo Metropolitan University in Oslo (2018), and the Faculty of Fine Art, Music and Design at the University of Bergen in Bergen (2019).

Alongside meetings for rectors, teachers and coordinators, programmes included visits to schools, workshops, museums and exhibitions.

The topics reflect questions that continue to matter. Oslo’s 2018 meeting explored “ANALOG / DIGITAL”, while Bergen in 2019 considered expectations in education and connections between the digital and physical.

The pandemic changed how we met. The planned Tallinn gathering in March 2020 was cancelled, but discussions continued online through leadership and coordinators’ meetings. EKA hosted “Virtual Tallinn” in March 2021, and the Art Academy of Latvia hosted the annual meeting online in March 2022. Mobility, digital collaboration and the practical difficulties facing international offices remained on the agenda.

In-person annual meetings resumed at Aalto University in 2023, followed by the Royal Danish Academy in Copenhagen in 2024, where the theme was “Design and Artistic Research”. In October 2025, Umeå Institute of Design welcomed colleagues representing 20 of the network’s 21 member institutions.

Separate leadership meetings have also continued: at AHO in Oslo in 2023, Vilnius Academy of Arts in 2024, EKA in Tallinn in 2025 and Iceland University of the Arts in Reykjavík in 2026. Tallinn’s theme, “Riding the Emotional Tide in Academia”, brought the human experience of academic leadership into the discussion.

This week, Lahti adds the next chapter with “Expanding the Community of Reformers”. Thank you to the colleagues and institutions who have hosted, organised, contributed to and participated in these meetings over the years.

Our shared archive is still incomplete, particularly for the network’s earlier decades. If you have programmes, photographs or memories from previous CIRRUS meetings, please share them with the network coordinator so that we can preserve this history together.

Looking ahead, the programme of CIRRUS meetings continues across the region, with opportunities for teachers, workshop masters, leaders and coordinators to meet and exchange experience.

Network meetings for teachers, workshop masters, leaders and coordinators:

• 7–9 October 2026: LAB Institute of Design and Fine Arts, Lahti, Finland.
• 3–5 November 2027: Estonian Academy of Arts, Tallinn, Estonia.
• 14–16 November 2028: Department of Design, University of Borås, Sweden.
• Autumn 2029: Design School Kolding, Denmark. Dates to be confirmed.

Leadership meetings:

• 17–19 March 2027: Art Academy of Latvia, Riga, Latvia, on the theme “How We Reach Policy Makers”.

Viscom in the North:

• 29–31 October 2026: The CIRRUS subgroup for visual communication staff will meet in Riga, Latvia.