Brussels, 14th March 2009
At its General Assembly in Brussels the BEDA membership, attending from 22 European countries, welcomed its new President Jan R. Stavik (Norway) to serve for the period 2009-2011. He will be supported in this role by the newly elected Vice President, Deborah Dawton (UK).
Outgoing President Michael Thomson (UK) congratulated Stavik on his new position, "Jan begins his Presidency at a very exciting moment for the European design agenda and I am delighted that he will continue BEDA's work in supporting the European Commission in positioning design as a tool for innovation at the European level."
In thanking Thomson for completing a significant term of office, Stavik announced that he has invited him to stay involved with the European Design Policy process. "Michael's role has been seminal in getting design onto the European agenda. We will continue to draw on his unique expertise as we move forward", said Stavik.
The returning Board members for their second year of office are:
Henrique Cayatte, Portuguese Design Centre, Portugal
Severin Filek, Design Austria, Austria
Tom Gloesener, Design Luxembourg, Luxembourg
Ilona Gurjanova, Estonian Design Centre, Estonia
Dag Holmgren, Swedish Designers, Sweden (Secretary)
Isabel Roig, Barcelona Design Centre, Spain (Treasurer)
Sanna Simola, Ornamo, Finland
Špela Šubic, BIO, Slovenia
Johan Valcke, Design Flanders, Belgium
BEDA also welcomed the following four new Members from Finland, Germany, Slovenia and the UK:
Design Forum Finland (www.designforum.fi)
Design Zentrum Nordrhein-Westfalen (www.red-dot.de)
DOS , Slovenia (www.dos-design.org)
The Design Council UK (www.designcouncil.org)
Speaking in Brussels on Saturday, Jan R. Stavik, BEDA President, said "BEDA is excited to welcome four strong and distinguished organisations to its membership. These new members add to our knowledge and to our capacity to influence the development of design policy at the European level, in order to better position Europe's industries to compete through design in a time of economic recovery."