Mad’in Europe CRAFTING CHANGE AWARD
Mad’in Europe is proud to join the TREMPLIN initiative, coordinated by BeCraft, and to present the Crafting Change Award, inviting graduating students from the 2025–2026 academic year participating in the TREMPLIN Exhibition to apply.
The award celebrates a new generation of designer-makers who imagine, develop and shape their work through a close relationship with materials, techniques and craftsmanship.
At Mad’in Europe, we believe that design and making are inseparable. Understanding materials, gestures, techniques and processes shapes design, just as design can open new possibilities for traditional and contemporary craft practices. Craft is also built on knowledge and transmission: skills acquired through practice, experimentation and exchange can become powerful creative resources from which to reinterpret, innovate and create.
Today, designer-makers are also confronted with questions about what and how we produce, the resources we use, the lifespan and value of objects, the conditions in which they are made, and the knowledge and skills we choose to preserve and transmit.
The Crafting Change Award recognises projects that engage with these questions through the interaction of craft, design and making. Projects will be evaluated through three complementary dimensions: MAKE, LEARN and CHANGE.
This award is for tudents participating in the Tremplin project only.
Criteria for Selection
Submitted projects will be evaluated through three complementary criteria: MAKE, LEARN and CHANGE. These consider respectively how making and craft knowledge shape the design, how learning and knowledge transmission enrich the project and its final outcome, and how the project uses craft and design to contribute to positive environmental, social, cultural or ethical change.
MAKE: How does making shape your design?
Projects should demonstrate a strong relationship between design and making, showing how materials, techniques, tools and processes have informed creative decisions. Making should not simply execute a predefined idea: experimentation, material properties, technical possibilities and knowledge gained through practice should actively contribute to the development of the design.
Your direct involvement in making is fundamental. This includes your own hands-on work and skills, as well as your ability to recognise when specialised craft knowledge is needed and to engage with the appropriate master artisan or workshop. In such collaborations, the artisan should not simply execute the design but contribute expertise that opens new possibilities, solutions or perspectives.
MAKE therefore values both the ability to make and the ability to work intelligently with the knowledge of others, recognising craft know-how as an active part of the creative and design process.
LEARN: What did you learn through making, and how did it transform your design?
Making is also a process of learning, discovery and experimentation. The jury will consider what new knowledge you acquired during the project, whether through your own hands-on experimentation or through exchanges with master artisans, craft teachers, technicians or specialised workshops, and how this knowledge influenced its development and final design.
What did this learning make possible? Did it change your understanding of a material or technique, challenge an initial idea, solve a technical or creative problem, or reveal an unexpected direction? The jury will look at how acquired knowledge enriched the project and contributed to its final outcome.
LEARN therefore values transmission and learning as creative resources: knowledge that enables you to explore new directions, question your own ideas and develop your skills.
CHANGE: How can your project contribute to a different way of making, using, understanding, valuing or transmitting?
Craft and design can contribute to change through choices about materials and sourcing, production, collaboration, durability and repairability, and the way skills and knowledge are valued and transmitted.
The jury will consider the project’s environmental, social, cultural and ethical engagement and how these considerations have influenced its design and making choices. Change may come through responsible materials, circular approaches, fair collaboration, community engagement, local production, or the preservation and reinterpretation of craft skills and knowledge.
Change does not need to be radical or large-scale. The jury will look at how the project questions or improves existing ways of designing, making, using, understanding, valuing or transmitting, within its own context and scale.
CHANGE therefore values the ability to turn environmental, social, cultural and ethical awareness into meaningful choices, recognising craft and design as powerful means to question existing practices and contribute to more responsible ways of making and living.
What can you win?
Three projects will receive the Crafting Change Award, recognising emerging designer-makers whose work best embodies MAKE, LEARN and CHANGE.
Each winner will receive a permanent free membership of the Mad’in Europe portal, with a dedicated professional profile presenting their work, skills and projects to a European and international audience.
Each will also be featured in a dedicated interview, published on their profile and promoted in four languages through Mad’in Europe’s communication and social media channels. This will give the winners visibility beyond their awarded project and connect them with Mad’in Europe’s European network of craftspeople, workshops, schools, cultural organisations and other craft and heritage stakeholders.
The winners will be invited to present their work and exchange ideas within the CRAFTWISE network during an Online Exchange Event. This session will allow the winners to show their projects, exchange ideas, and connect with craft professionals, project experts, and European peers from Turkey, Romania, Spain, and Greece. The exchange provides the winners a unique chance to immerse themselves in CRAFTWISE, a European project dedicated to empowering the next generation of makers by exploring collaboration between craftsmanship and design and bridging traditional craftsmanship with contemporary design practices.
***Beyond the three main awards, all applicants will have the opportunity to participate in some CRAFTWISE project activities.
How to apply?
Fill in the Google Form HERE by 11 October 2026 at midnight, Brussels time.
A collaboration
Brussels, Belgium
