Assistant Lecturer

Email: aija.freimane@TUDublin.ie

Tel: +37129409860

Dr Aija Freimane is a full-time academic faculty member of TU Dublin School of Creative Arts since September 2021. She lectures on arts, design and creative industries subjects, such as design and artistic research methods, strategic, quality and project management, value of design and supervise undergraduate and postgraduate thesis development. From 2008 till 2021 Aija Freimane was an Associate Professor of Design Department, Art Academy of Latvia and lectured on several subjects within the arts and creative industries including design and project management. She supervised design Bachelor, Master, and Doctoral theses and projects. Aija Freimane developed research-based design practice in Latvia. She holds the first PhD in design’s context and conducted the only postdoctoral research in design, funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) there being a visiting postdoc at TU Dublin. Aija Freimane has strong project management and leadership skills, abilities and experience in leading project teams towards a common result, both scientifically and through the project management. She has multi-contextual educational and professional background, and experience.

Aija Freimane practises and advises on diverse human-centred design research, design and creative thinking methods in process, strategy and new products, together with service development. Her research interests are linked with value of design from the user perspective, design for sustainable social well-being, social capital, happiness, and human behaviour studies (design anthropology and sociology). Aija Freimane as a side result of her PhD developed and published “Design Footprints” (Dizaina pēdas in Latvian), an interactive timeline and map of design, socio-economic, political, technological and sustainability facts from 1588–2015, and “Perceived Design Value. The socioeconomic impact of design” as a result of her postdoctoral study in 2020 where the triple design process and design maturity matrix are proposed to witness design’s added value in a framework of redefined design definition. Aija advocates design as a method of creating happy and satisfied societies. The study in 2021 was awarded prestigious A’ Design Award in the category Meta, Service and Strategic Design Section.

Dr Aija Freimane is a member of SEGD (Society of Experimental Graph Design, USA) Academic Task Force for the year 2021/2022 and a member of Design Research Society, Design Literacy network as well as Design Principles and Practices.

List of publications/research

Freimane, A.; 2021. "Decoding Design Value." Design Principles and Practices: An International Journal—Annual Review 15 (1): 45-54. doi:10.18848/1833-1874/CGP/v15i01/45-54.; ISSN: 1833-1874 (Print); ISSN: 2473-5736 (Online)

Freimane, A.; Perceived Design Value. The socio-economic impact of Design, Art Academy of Latvia, 2020, ISBN 978-9934-541-51-3; PDF ISBN 978-9934-541-52-0

Freimane, A.; Identification system of Design socio-economic impact towards transformation of knowledge intensive economy in Latvia; Art Academy of Latvia, 2020, PDF ISBN 978-9934-541-54-4

Freimane, A.; “Perceived design Value through the Lens of Generation Z”, CUMULUS Bogota conference The Design After, Bogota, Colombia; “The Design After”, Cumulus Conference Proceedings Bogota 2019; ISBN 978-958-774-912-0; ISSN 2490-046X; Universidad de los Andes, School of Architecture and Design, Bogota, Colombia; 302.-311.

Freimane, A.; “System of Decoding Design Value”, AMPS Proceedings Series 17.1. ISSN 2398-9467; AMPS conference Education, Design and Practice – Understanding skills in a Complex World, Stevens Institute of Technology, New York / New Jersey, USA; AMPS C.I.O.; 54-62.pp

Freimane, A.; How to witness design; (2018) Proceedings of the 20^th International Conference on Engineering and Product Design Education, E and PDE 2018; Document: Type: Conference Paper; Publication Stage: Final; Source: Scopus

Freimane, A; Design Footprints for Mining the Future; Source: Acta Academiae Artium Vilnensis. 2017, Issue 84, p105-116. 12p.; Type: Article; Subject terms: SOCIOECONOMICS; DESIGN education; ART & design – Study & teaching; ART education; PROFESSIONAL education; ISSN: 1392-0316

Freimane. A. (2015) “Dilemma of ethical & social aspects in design”, Engineering and product design education conference “Great expectations: design teaching, research & enterprise”, 3. – 4.09.2015, Loughborough University, Design school, Loughborough, UK, 232.-237. pp., ISBN: 978-1-904670-62-9

Freimane. A. (2015) “Case Study: Design Thinking and New Product Development for School Age Children”, 3rd International Conference for Design Education Researchers: “LearnXDesign, 2015”; 28. – 30.06.2015, Chicago, USA; Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference for Design Education Researchers, ©2015 Aalto university, DRS, CUMULUS, Design-Ed and the authors; pp.187-199; v-1; ISBN 978-952-60-0069-5 (vol. 1- 4)

Freimane. A. (2013) „Design for Well-being in the Era of Liberal Sustainability Paradox”, the 16th Conference of the European Roundtable on Sustainable Consumption and Production (ERSCP) & 7th Conference of the Environmental Management for Sustainable Universities (EMSU) „Bridges for a More Sustainable Future uniting Continents and Societies, Istanbul, Turkey, 04-07.06.2013

Freimane. A. (2013) “Design in the era of liberal sustainability paradox”; SCORAI (Sustainable Consumption research and Action Initiative), Istanbul, Turkey; 04.06.2013

Freimane. A. (2012) „The user values as indicators of sustainable consumption shift”; ERSCP 2012 (European Roundtable of Sustainable Consumption and production), Bregenz, Austria, 2.-4.05.2012”, www.erscp2012.eu; pp.172.-176.ISBN: 978-3-901269-00-4