Dr Aija Freimane is a full-time academic faculty member of TU Dublin School of Art and Design 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 since 2021, a member of Design Research Society, Design Literacy network, Design Principles and Practices,  as well as the Institute of Designers in Ireland.

Value of Design, Design Context, Design Methods, Design Anthropology and Sociology, Design for Sustainable Social Wellbeing, Design for Happiness, Universal Design, Design Education