Design+Science Summer School Ljubljana 2025

Nova Gorica / Gorizia
18—22 Sept 2025

RECLAIMING HOPE:

Navigate (un)certainty, imagine better futures

The Summer School is a part of the European Capital of Culture GO! 2025 Nova Gorica International Symposium and Summer School

We are living through a time of polycrisis, where climate breakdown, rising inequality, and political unrest intersect and shape our daily lives in complex ways. The optimistic future once envisioned by the West in the late 20th century has failed to materialize; instead, we face uncertainty, disruption, and growing divides. This moment calls for a renewed effort to imagine how communities can come together to confront shared challenges.
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Design and science, as disciplines rooted in imagination and worldmaking, have long offered tools to explore alternative realities. Today, their speculative power is more vital than ever. In a world that insists “there is no alternative,” what happens when we dare to imagine one anyway? What if Utopia isn’t naïve, but necessary?

Applications for 2025 edition are now open until 31st of July 2025.

Apply now

About D+S
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Design+Science is a multidisciplinary Summer School that fosters exploration and experimentation at the intersection of design and diverse scientific disciplines. Led by renowned experts, it brings together participants from a wide range of fields—design, architecture, art, computer science, social and natural sciences, and more.

Open to master’s and PhD students as well as young professionals, the program centers on collaborative group work across disciplines. Rather than following a fixed methodology, the Summer School encourages open, flexible processes—allowing each group to define its own approach and direction throughout the course.

Location

Design+Science Summer School will take place in person at EPIC, Nova Gorica and will feature an offsite in Goriška Brda.

Admissions

Applications for 2025 are open until 31th of July 2025.

The course costs 50 eur. It includes accomodation, lectures, all the materials, excursions, and lunch for the duration of the summer school. Participants are expected to organize their own travel.

All students (even from partner institutions) need to apply via Design+Science application form.

Programme

Conference line-up

Ezio Manzini
Lodovica Guarnieri
Ákos Schneider
David Martens
Guillem Camprodon
James Auger
Jimmy Loizeau
José Luis de Vicente
Silvio Lorusso
Time's Up

For more information check
conference website

Design mentors‍

Nejc Prah
‍Freelance designer working mostly within the cultural sector and teaches at UL ALUO.
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Emil Kozole
‍Designer working with emerging technologies and teaches at UL ALUO.
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Sigrid Buerstmayr
Specialist in exhibition design and sustainable design and teaches at FH JOANNEUM.

Oleg Šuran
Working as an associate at the University of Split and as a freelance visual communication and interaction designer.

Team
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Boštjan Botas Kenda
Maja Drobne
Borut Jerman
Jernej Kejžar
Marina Klemenčič
Emil Kozole
Ana Markežič
Sigrid Bürstmayr
Birgit Bachler
Daniel Fabry
Ivica Mitrović

Key facts

Admissions

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The course costs 50 eur. It includes accomodation, lectures, all the materials, excursions, and lunch for the duration of the summer school. Participants are expected to organize their own travel.

Who can participate?

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Participants are not expected to be experts in the field of visual communication; on the contrary, researchers from the natural sciences, social sciences and humanities are invited to participate. There is also no restriction in terms of status: MSc and PhD students are welcome, as are creatives and entrepreneurs working in various fields who want to expand their expertise with knowledge at the intersection of design and science.

The language of this Summer School is English, so a good command of spoken and written English is expected.

How to apply and when to expect the participation to be confirmed?

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To start, please complete the application form which includes your contact details and a short CV which should give us some initial information about your background. Within the application, you will also be asked to answer a specific question designed to immerse you in the topic and prepare you for the experiences that await you at Summer School. Applications are open until 31st ofJuly and you will be notified by 7th of August 2025 if your application was successful. All further information will follow after that.

What will be the outcomes of the Design+Science Summer School?

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The aim of this Summer School is to sharpen participants' knowledge, skills, understanding and intelligence in this emerging field through guided training over the duration of Summer School.

Participants will be expected to present their part-projects on the last day of Summer School as well as turn in their completed work afterwards. All projects will be included in a book. For the successful completion of the programme, participants who are students can receive 3 ECTS credits.

Applications for 2025 edition are now open until 31st of July 2025.

Apply now

Contact

design.science@aluo.uni-lj.si

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The term "subversive" suggests an intent to subvert an established system. But what happens the day after the revolution? This theme invites exploration of not only the broken systems of today and our psychological biases but also the external realities that make us believe that there is no alternative.

2023 Edition:
Paraintelligence‍

The term "para" means "beyond" or "beside" and, in the context of intelligence, refers to a type of intelligence that exists beyond what is traditionally recognized as intelligence, including notions such as intuition, creativity, and emotional intelligence that are often overlooked in traditional definitions of intelligence. The aim was to redefine the definition of intelligence in order to understand and predict how it will evolve and what the consequences will be for human and non-human beings on this planet.

2022 Edition:
Cohabitation‍

An estimated 8.7 million species populate planet Earth today. We, humans, are the only representatives of at least eight other human species that existed with us 300,000 years ago. Due to our imperative for progress, we are in the process of wiping out one species after another, making us, humans, the dominant species on this planet.
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2021 Edition:
Synthetic Foods

Making tortellini from jet fuel is a concept that is no longer rocket science. Due to the limited availability of natural food sources and with accelerating developments in DNA manipulation in biotechnology, lab foods are emerging as a future reality. Are humans ready for such a transformation?
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