ArtsIT/DLI History, Research and Network Development

The international conference ArtsIT that began in 2009 has grown since its inauguration presentation in Taiwan. Since then it has been hosted twice in Denmark, 2011 and 2016; as well as in Italy 2013; Turkey 2014; and most recently in Crete, Greece in 2017. The international conference Design, Learning and Innovation (DLI) was inaugurated in 2016 as a co-located event to ArtsIT being presented together in Esbjerg, Denmark; in 2017 in Heraklion, Crete, Greece; and in 2018 in Braga, Portugal. The series of conferences has realized over 108000 Springer e-book downloads at September 2018 and numerous special issue journals. This paper presents past aspects of ArtsIT/DLI from the perspective of steering persons having purpose to offer readers a historical framing of the events under the European Alliance for Innovation (EAI). This is supplemented by overviewing the authors’ researches, which promoted EAI to invite leadership, alongside a background of the complementary workings, and contextual goals of the partnering.