Before the Open Call closed last week, the leader of the YDG'26 program hit the road.
Ana Lia Santos - Designer, Professor and Researcher at FBAUL / CIEBA - travelled across Portugal through a dedicated roadshow to bring the opportunity directly to Design, Architecture, and Art schools, meeting students and educators where they are and strengthening the connections that make this initiative meaningful.
Made possible through a partnership agreement between Lisbon Design Week and MUDE – Museum of Design, with the support of novobanco, the journey spanned three weeks and ten institutions. What struck Ana Lia most wasn't just the distance covered, but the variety encountered along the way. "How different the schools are, how different the landscapes, how different the light", each stop had its own rhythm and its own relationship with design.
And yet, beneath all that difference, something consistent emerged. "The love for design is there. The understanding of the importance of design, design being understood as a positive thing, that is very, very important."
These were the schools that opened their doors:
February 19 — Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Lisbon
February 24 — University of Aveiro
February 24 — Polytechnic Institute of Portalegre
February 25 — Faculty of Architecture, University of Lisbon
February 25 — Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Porto
February 25 — ESAD Matosinhos
March 4 — ISMAT Portimão
March 4 — ETIC Faro
March 4 — University of Évora
March 9 — IADE Lisbon
What was your overall impression of the students you met during the roadshow?
Every school has its own atmosphere. The monastery cells of FBAUL in Lisbon, the industrial clarity of ESAD in Matosinhos, the lakeside calm of Portalegre, and the surprising architectural beauty of Évora. You walk into each place, and you feel it immediately. But what stayed with me across all ten stops was something that didn't change: the love for design was there everywhere, regardless of where I was.
What stood out to you most in the new generation of designers across Portugal?
How important diversity is in the Portuguese design ecosystem. Everything being different, the cities, the rhythms, the buildings, the light, must be understood as something positive, something that matters. Students across Portugal are learning and living design in genuinely different ways, and that richness is important. The variety is something to celebrate, not flatten.
What key lesson or insight did you take away from this journey?
Students need to be encouraged to open their work to the world beyond the classroom. A platform like YDG matters, not just for visibility, but because it pushes you to look at your own work differently, to articulate it, to present it with intention. What I heard repeatedly was that there is a desire for the faculty to be more open to other centers of knowledge, to the outside world, to practice, and to professionals. There is a desire to be part of something bigger, and that, ultimately, is exactly what Lisbon Design Week seeks to build, a community of designers.
This journey was made possible through the protocol between Lisbon Design Week and MUDE – Museum of Design, which gave YDG a home and opened the door to a wider creative ecosystem. The support of Novobanco, the first Portuguese bank to directly back the new generation of designers, made the Roadshow possible.
