The Glasgow School of Art (GSA) today, Thursday 10 April, launches GSA Rural Lab, a pioneering interdisciplinary research centre at the GSA Highlands & Islands campus near Forres, Moray. The initiative explores the intersections of research, innovation, education, and enterprise to drive sustainable economic growth and cultural transformation in rural spaces.
Building on a 20-year impact of placed-based research, community, business and public sector engagement across Scotland’s Highlands and Islands, Rural Lab is the first of two new strategic research centres to be created under the GSA’s Strategic Plan 2022-2027.
Driving World-Leading Research and Innovation
The Glasgow School of Art Rural Lab houses a range of ambitious research projects, including:
- Lo-Res: Rochuln – Transforming a former croft steading to a field station for sustainable living and ecological research, blending agriculture, biodiversity development, and innovative rural design.
- Craft Scaler – An ambitious research initiative shaping the future of Scotland’s craft economy, addressing scalability and sustainability within the sector.
- Holistic Femtech – MEG (Menopause Experience Guide) – A ground-breaking AI-powered digital health tool to support women through menopause, developed by GSA Rural Lab spin-out company Ethnologic, with economic benefits for the NHS.
GSA Highlands and Islands also strengthens the GSA’s world-class educational portfolio, offering research-led postgraduate study and, this year hosting the 10th edition of the School of Innovation and Technology’s international Winter School. Winter School unites scholars and practitioners from across disciplines and leading global art and design institutions to tackle global ecological challenges through design and technology, complemented by GSA Rural Lab’s growing role as a globally connected place-based research and innovation centre of excellence.
Many leading national and international academic leaders from North and South America, Europe, China and Kyrgyzstan, will attend both Winter School and the launch of GSA Rural Lab.
Professor Irene McAra-McWilliam, Director of GSA Highlands & Islands, and Deputy Director and Vice Principal of Research & Innovation at the GSA, has been based at Forres for several years, and is a native of Moray. She emphasises the importance of collaboration to boost rural interests across Scotland.
“Through cross-disciplinary collaboration, GSA Rural Lab champions new approaches to rural enterprise, sustainable economies, and place-driven research and innovation. It encourages new ways of thinking about the potential for sustainable growth in rural spaces, embraces and emphasises the importance of rural traditions, craft and making in future-focused sectors and emerging specialisms such as space, bioscience and AI,” she explained.
“GSA Rural Lab is a tangible demonstration of The Glasgow School of Art’s continued commitment to the communities it is part of and to research excellence and the role of design, creativity, and innovation as drivers of economic and cultural transformation.”
Professor Penny Macbeth, Director and Principal of The Glasgow School of Art, commented: “Rural areas in Scotland face unique challenges, from workforce shortages and digital connectivity gaps to an ageing population and limited service access. GSA Rural Lab is positioned as a key player in Scotland’s rural economic strategy, aligning with national initiatives such as Highlands and Islands Enterprise’s (HIE) 2023-2028 Strategy.
“By fostering creative and innovation led collaborations across a range of industries – including craft, regenerative design, future energy, digital health, and community wealth-building – GSA Rural Lab will accelerate Scotland’s creative economy and enhance the global competitiveness of rural enterprises.”
The GSA’s longstanding presence in the Highlands dates to 2010, culminating in the opening of its Highlands & Islands campus at the restored Blairs Farm Steading on the Altyre Estate in 2016. Since then, it has become a world leader in rural research and innovation, founding flagship initiatives such as the Digital Health and Care Innovation Centre (DHI), a Scottish Funding Council National Innovation Centre, and a key recipient of £5 million in UK and Scottish Government investment through the Moray Growth Deal.
With the launch of GSA Rural Lab, The Glasgow School of Art is reaffirming its role as a catalyst for rural economic transformation and a leader in global research and innovation. By harnessing creative cutting-edge research together with innovation, enterprise and education, Rural Lab will help shape the sustainable economies of the future, ensuring that rural communities are vibrant centres of enterprise, technology, and cultural innovation.
Download the Rural Lab brochure PDF from the menu to the right for more detailed information on the initiative.
All images should be credited to Andy Buchanan.
For any further information please contact press@gsa.ac.uk
NOTES FOR EDITORS
About GSA RURAL LAB
The Glasgow School of Art Rural Lab is a new, interdisciplinary research centre designed to explore the intersections of research, innovation, education and enterprise within rural contexts. Based at the GSA Highlands & Islands campus in Forres, and building on a twenty-year foundation, Rural Lab engages in research that explores sustainable economies, cultural heritage, and place-driven innovation. Through cross-disciplinary collaboration and partnerships, Rural Lab encourages new ways of thinking about the potential for sustainable growth in rural spaces.
About Winter School
The second phase of the Winter School will take place, on site, at the GSA & Islands Highlands campus on the Altyre Estate at Forres in April 2025. The Winter School is an international and cross-cultural experience aimed at undergraduate, Masters and PhD students from around the world. This annual event brings together students and professors of design, engineering, computer science and social sciences to explore a contemporary challenge (combining ecological, technological and social dimensions) through an intensive project experience.
This first phase features talks by design theorist John Thackara and Dr Albert Fuster of the GSA to students and faculty from across Europe, Asia and China. Participants from the GSA (Glasgow/Forres) KISD (Cologne), Elisava (Barcelona), Bratislava Academy of Fine Art & Design (Slovakia), the University of Central Asia (UCA, Kyrgyzstan) were joined by Professors and students from Central Academy of Fine Art (CAFA, Beijing), Tsinghua University (Beijing), Guangzhou Academy of Fine Art (Guangdong) and Luxun Academy of Fine Art (Shenyang).
The event sees students working in various locations around Europe and Asia before coming together in early April on the GSA Highlands campus on the Altyre Estate at Forres, near Inverness. The Winter School theme is “Radical Stewardship: creating the landscape of care” and explores how the relationship between human beings, nature and emerging technology shapes a global conversation about life on our planet. This exciting multi-national and cross-cultural educational initiative explores how design and innovation approaches allow us to engage with the ecological challenges that we see all around us – and how we will create new ways of living that preserve our present and safeguard our future.
“The Winter School is where the planet puts its brightest young minds from around the world to work.” says Professor Gordon Hush, Head of The School of Innovation & Technology.
“Here the creativity, tenacity and expertise of the next generation starts working out how to deal with the huge issues facing our world – from forest fires, to rising sea levels, crop failures and threats to bio-diversity… Online and in the Highlands, sharing ideas, cultures and expertise this is where young people demonstrate that we can work together to make a difference, to change what it will mean to live on Planet Earth in the future.”
About The Glasgow School of Art
The Glasgow School of Art (GSA) is internationally recognised as one of Europe’s leading independent university-level institutions for education and research in the visual creative disciplines. Our studio-based, specialist, practice-led teaching, learning and research draw talented individuals with a shared passion for visual culture and creative production from all over the world.
Originally founded in 1845 as one of the first Government Schools of Design, the School’s history can be traced back to 1753 and the establishment of the Foulis Academy delivering a European-style art education. Today, the GSA is an international community of over 3500 students and staff across architecture, design, digital, fine art and innovation in our campuses in Glasgow and Altyre (in the Scottish Highlands) and a thriving Open Studio programme delivering non-degree provision to over 1500 students annually.
About the School of Innovation and Technology (SIT)
The School of Innovation and Technology’s (SIT) explores future opportunities for innovation by considering alternative ways of living in the present. SIT aims to integrate social and technological innovations in a way that transcends traditional disciplinary boundaries within art and science and examine complex questions in fields such as healthcare, education, technology and pressingly within the context of the climate/ecology crisis.
