Kobe Design University (KDU) signed a framework agreement with Kobe City to promote “Design City Kobe” and also with Miki City and Hyogo Prefectural Federation of Societies of Commerce and Industry. Our faculty members and students are actively working to facilitate city planning, community planning and industrial revitalization as well as organizing art events, workshops and designing posters. President of KDU, Dr. Takahito Saiki, has also been appointed as the Executive Director in charge of Kobe City development strategies to promote “Design City Kobe.”

Kobe City was designated as a ”Design City” by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in October 2008. As a university working in cooperation with Kobe City, KDU implemented the UNESCO program WAT_Kobe 2009 together with universities from eight different countries around the world. In 2010, KDU participated in the poster design designING competition held by UNESCO along with other UNESCO ”Design Cities” worldwide.

The Kobe Biennale 2011, to be held from October 1 to November 23, aims to invigorate both Kobe and Japan at large with the power of art, and to promote the city’s creativity to the world. The students and faculty members of KDU are working as volunteers to help organizing this big event. Some of them have also applied to enter the competition, and the successful applicants are currently preparing their works for October.

As a member of Cumulus (the International Association of Universities and Colleges of Art, Design and Media), formed of 165 universities from 43 countries, KDU strives to create new trends in design and art and to disseminate such trends from Asia to the rest of the world.

KDU took part in Salone Satellite Milano as an exhibitor on behalf of design universities in Japan in 2009 and 2010 and received high acclaim both times. In 2011, KDU is again participating in this event to promote its art projects to the world.

In April 2010, KDU opened the Research Institute of Asian Design (RIAD). Under the leadership of its director, Kohei Sugiura, RIAD held an international symposium ”Mountain Floats to Connect This World and Another” in June 2010 with “Asian Forms and Design” as its theme. In 2011, RIAD plans to reproduce and to create a picture of a ”shimenoyama” float, which was used in festivals during the Heian Period (794–1192) based on descriptions found in classical literature and the outcomes of recent studies regarding Japanese floats in a joint program between RIAD/KDU and Kokugakuin University.