Category: News

Florence Design Week is coming back!

Europass Foundation has taken on the relaunch of the international design festival, which will return to the city from 15 to 21 March 2027 after its last edition in 2019.

Since its debut in May 2010, the festival has brought designers, companies, design schools and visitors from around the world to Florence, turning historic palaces, workshops, galleries and public spaces in the centre into a single city-wide exhibition route.

Over its editions, it built a significant international network, with collaborations that included the London Design Festival, Melbourne Design Week and Saint Petersburg Design Week, along with recognition under the High Patronage of the President of the Italian Republic.

It is this legacy — a festival able to connect local businesses, emerging creatives and global scenes — that Europass Foundation intends to bring back to life.

The relaunch starts from the ground up: a new website, a new digital identity, a new exhibitor map. Material from past editions will remain accessible, preserving continuity with the festival’s history.

For Europass Foundation, the project sits naturally within its mission: education, culture and international cooperation, with Florence as a meeting point between those who design, those who produce and those who teach.

Florence Design Week becomes an opportunity to connect Tuscany’s creative and manufacturing fabric with the international community already present in the city.

The full programme and the call for exhibitors will be announced in the coming months.

Updates at florencedesignweek.com

After more than thirty years spent helping students and teachers learn, travel, and grow across Europe, Europass is taking a new step. On 27 February 2026, in Florence, the Europass Foundation ETS was officially established.

The act was signed before Notary Tommaso Morandi by Ambra Falabella, on behalf of Europass Srl, together with the Foundation’s first leadership team: David Baroni as President, Ambra Falabella as Vice President, Andrea Merlo as Treasurer, and Fabio Cambi as head of the Supervisory Body.

Why a Foundation

What began in 1992 as the Europass Italian Language School in Florence, and expanded in the 2010s with Europass Teacher Academy, has become a European network of training centres in more than twenty countries, welcoming thousands of educators every year through Erasmus+.

Being in contact with so many teachers and schools across Europe is both a privilege and a responsibility. It gives us a perspective few others have on how education is changing, on what teachers need.

With the Foundation, we want to put that perspective to use: not only to support the Academies of the Teacher Academy network, but to contribute to shaping the Europe and the World of tomorrow through the kind of activities that only a non-profit body can carry forward: an observatory on European education, surveys, festivals, open research, and partnerships with institutions that share the same goals.

The Foundation works alongside the operational organisations of the Europass ecosystem, with a distinct remit and a non-profit purpose.