A: I do think that there is a certain amount of knowledge, skills and competences required to take up the responsibility as an interior designer. The way to achieve those is up to the educators. Any standardized curriculum should leave room to put different accents, so it should only cover the “hard” part of the training. Unfortunately, that is the least sexy part of the training, so describing just that will always evoke some resistance.

A: In the Netherlands, since recently we have enforced a compulsory two-year period with guided mentorship. Formerly this was regulated by the professional organization, and now it’s part of the Architects Title Law. For other parts of Europe, we are also making steps towards such a provision in the new Charter. We think it is necessary to bridge the gap between education and profession, between learning and handling fully on your own responsibility. All too often that gap is closed by trial and error, which is bad for the reputation of the profession as a whole. The challenge is to convince educators that not everything can be learned in school, and hence a diploma is never a vocational license.

A: In 2004, the ECIA introduced a model code of conduct, which can be found here: http://ecia.net/what_we_do/code_of_conduct/english. Any code of conduct will only be successful if there is some instrument available to command compliance, as well as sanctions that are visible to the public at large available. As long as such provision does not directly restrict entrepreneurship, designers will embrace it.

A: It is a necessity. If and how this should be regulated depends on local culture, but any practitioner should be aware of his or her obligation to life-long learning. There are not any legal instruments in place in most countries. It is the goal of the ECIA to create awareness within the profession.

Our recently changed title law (here in the Netherlands) requires 16 hours of CPD (i.e. Continue Professional Development) annually, but this is not controlled or administered by any official body. It’s a personal obligation of which you should be able to give account when a client asks for it or when you get into trouble; a judge or arbitrator will ask for your records and will take it into consideration in his judgment.

A: The body of knowledge as you find in the appendix of the 2007 Charter was simply derived from different existing sources. The learning outcomes as included in the 2013 version were derived from different sources including national standards and regulations, industry standards from adjacent professions (architects, landscape architects), and educational profiles. These were put together and broadly discussed among a working group of practitioners and educators from all European countries.

There was some discussion among member organizations as to the status of the Charter: whether it is a political paper or pamphlet to obtain recognition at national level or even Europe-wide, or an industry standard put up by the industry itself as a sort of self-regulation. We decided that it is the latter, although we cannot exclude the possibility that some members would use it for more political reasons.

A: One of ECIA’s goals is to enhance the mobility of practitioners, students and educators, which happens to be also one of the core ideas behind the Bologna system. We therefore feel that we have to connect the different stages in the training period (which refer to the combination of “education” and “practice”), and cannot merely describe the entry level of the profession. Measurable uniform learning outcomes at all stages of the training can be derived this way, rather than having to put together an examination system complimentary to the education assessment systems that are already in place. This will facilitate exchange or transfer of students during courses or between bachelor’s and master’s courses.