Philipp Heidkamp

Professor, Koln International School of Design (KISD), Germany, Cumulus Vice President (2016–2021)

Philipp Heidkamp, Designer and Academic by passion and profession, has been running his own studio for Interface/Interaction and Information Design in Cologne for more than 20 years. Since 2001 he is Professor for Interface / Interaction Design at KISD (TH Koln) having more than 25 years of academic experience both in the field of design teaching and research as well as organizational development, leadership and science management.

He is currently Head of Program MA Integrated Design / European Design (MEDes) and responsible for Global Strategy and Relations at KISD. At KISD, Philipp took leadership responsibility as Director of KISD followed by 12 years serving as Dean of the Faculty of Cultural Sciences.

One of his passions and academic core activities is internationalization – working with partners from all continents since more than 15 years. Besides collaborations in existing structures, he is developing new formats both inside and parallel to existing academic structures and paths in order to address global challenges and continually adjust and improve the work at his own institution. He is active as external advisor and joins various academic review processes. As a founding member of the Global Design Initiative, he is pushing the boundaries of both the design agenda and educational/academic formats to come. Philipp conducted workshops in more than 20 countries; in the previous years, Philipp ran several collaboration projects with schools from Asia and Europe to work on future food systems, urban transitions and citizen participation.

In 2019, Philipp has been elected as Executive Board of Cumulus and takes stewardship for the association as Vice President. In the last two years, he created platforms for digital collaboration supporting the community in times of transition. He co-chairs the Cumulus Working Group Leadership and Strategy.