UID's 30th anniversary saw alumni travel in from across the globe to celebrate the school's history and reunite with old friends. Together, alumni and students charted a path towards the future in design.

For the seventh time in nine years, and the fourth year in a row, Umeå Institute of Design at Umeå University occupies top position on the Red Dot Design Ranking, rating design educations in the Americas and Europe.

Students in the BFA programme at Umeå Institute of Design cooperated with Deutsche Telekom and Covestro in a pilot project developing creative designs for small 5G antennas.

In his grad project last year, Simon Linge collaborated with ABB to develop an idea for a robot that buzzes around hospital halls stacking shelves. Today, he works at the Swiss-Swedish multinational corporation.

What Maria Göransdotter doesn't know about UID is probably not worth knowing. After shouldering several roles, not least as vice rector, she is now primarily focusing on her doctoral thesis on Scandinavian user-centred design.

In their latest course, Fluid Assemblages, the second-year students of the Master's Programme in Interaction Design were challenged to "look under the hood" of the tech apps and gadgets of our time.