Editorial

With the inauguration of the eighth volume, the International Journal of Design Creativity and Innovation (IJDCI) starts a new cycle with important novelties and renewed ambitions. First, the journal is now offered in the Science & Technology Library package, which is an extremely attractive bundle for academic libraries, research organizations and others for being the largest collection of science and technology content of Taylor and Francis with over 500 journals, 10,000 volumes and 700,000 peer-reviewed articles. We are confident that this will imply broader visibility for the research studies published in this journal and ultimately a higher impact of design creativity research on society. The second not less important novelty of 2020 is the renewal of the editorial and steering advisory boards of the journal. Thirty-seven board members (20 in the editorial board and 17 in the advisory board) from 14 different countries and with complementary areas of focus within the design creativity and innovation domain accepted the challenge to work together toward a higher recognition of both the journal in particular and the entire field of study in general. The eighth year of IJDCI starts with the editorial by former president of the Design Society, Prof. Panos Y. Papalambros from the University of Michigan, USA. In the editorial, Prof. Papalambros shares his thoughts on the interplay between education and research. A key value of academic education is the continuous update of the courses content with the most recent outcomes of research activities and the latest studies published by scholars from all over the world. Prof. Papalambros highlights the important role of design education as a means to validate design research. The editorial offers stimulating insights and points for reflection based on his large experience in the design field. The new year also starts with IJDCI being selected among the journals proposed for the PubliER 2020 Workshop. The workshop, to be held in Troyes (France) from 29 to 31 January 2020, is dedicated to support top-end early researchers in refining their scientific academic writing skills. The aim is to enable the researchers to improve their writing and publishing capacities and to polish previously written papers so as to publish them on the most pertinent international scientific journals in their fields of study. Papers dealing with design creativity submitted to PubliER 2020 will be discussed in dedicated sessions where IJDCI editors will meet the authors to advise and guide them. Early researchers will also participate as peer reviewers for other papers participating in the same session. Eventually, the process will enable the researchers to better previously written papers and end with a top-quality product to be submitted to the journal where the resulting enhanced paper has higher chances of being accepted. Therefore, we have great expectations for 2020. After all, eight is the luckiest number in the Chinese culture as its ideogram 八 sounds like 發 (fa), which means ‘wealth’ and ‘fortune’ in the Chinese language. Hopefully, Volume 8 of IJDCI will sprout under the sign of luck and prosperity for design creativity research.