The Andes university, located in Bogota, is a private institution founded in 1948, and currently has a population of almost 12 000 students in nine schools with 21 departments.

Our Design department was founded 13 years ago into the Architecture and Design School. Our department today has 700 students and 70 faculty members, including professors, associate professors, assistant professors, tutors, lecturers and administrative staff. Recently, we created two related programs, Design Products and Design for Communication.

Mission statement:
The Department of Design of the Universidad de los Andes is an academic space of excellence where professionals with leadership potential, creative capacity and innovative attitudes are formed. Its graduates can undertake in a critical and flexible way the different specialties of design with the capacity to lead the adding value from the creative sector and to promote design and humanization of technology in a global and multidisciplinary context.

The education of our designers is based, on one hand, in the comprehension of the human being in relation to his/her relationships, behaviours, historic background and cultural diversity and, on the other hand, in the promotion of the development of the individual sensibility, communicative abilities, reflexive process and autonomy of its students. All this articulated in a process of teaching-learning in which research is the main resource for the construction of knowledge.

The process is being lead by a qualified educational team and in permanent academic and professional formation in different areas of design (Design Products and Design for Communication) capable to co-ordinate interdisciplinary working groups that assure a holistic approximation to design.

Achievements:
Our Design Department is the first to have research groups in the topics: Sustainability, Bionics, Design and Health, Design and Education, Product Design, Communication and Culture. The students learn about social problems and resolve them with design sensitivity. The research groups focuses on the innovative, interdisciplinary and integrated research.

Long-term goals:
In the year 2015 we will be a vanguard academic program to the level of undergraduate and graduate Design in Latin America. This program will be recognized under the standards of quality of teaching and learning Design at national and international levels, and will stand out of the integral education of professionals in design. It will have more professors with master degrees and doctorates whose practice of research, development and management of projects in academic networks will be very important. It will also have research groups and environments of multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary work, that at the same time are flexible to characterise the academic and professional development of our community. The achievements and contributions will answer the demands of society, the industry, the state and the global market and will contribute to the development of businesses and the improvement of the quality of life in Colombia with projection to the world.