Lady Helen Hamlyn CBE Receives the 2025 Sir Misha Black Medal for Distinguished Services to Design Education

Set up to commemorate the legacy of Sir Misha Black, the Sir Misha Black Medal for Distinguished Services to Design Education is awarded to individuals across the globe who have made a significant contribution to design education.

For more than four decades, Lady Hamlyn has reshaped design education with a unique vision driven by creativity, collaboration and social purpose. Her groundbreaking work has redefined how design serves society, bringing inclusive, human-centred approaches into education, health, policy and community life.

Her journey began with the New Design for Old exhibition at the V&A in 1986, reframing

ageing as a design challenge. A close ally of the College, she later founded DesignAge at the Royal College of Art, which evolved into the internationally acclaimed Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design (HHCD).

Lady Hamlyn’s impact extends beyond traditional design education. As a designer she has

brought design thinking into health, culture, and community development. Amongst her major initiatives are the endowment of the Hamlyn Centre for Robotic Surgery at Imperial College London (2008) which brings together engineers, clinicians and computer scientists at the forefront of research in surgical robotics, founding Open Futures (2003), an award-winning learning programme for children in deprived areas which introduced new contexts for learning and supported schools to design a more holistic and expansive curriculum. International projects in India, Portugal and the USA combine education, sustainability, and cultural preservation and demonstrate her belief that when communities are supported to design their own solutions, the results can be truly transformative.

Her lifelong commitment to collaboration, creativity and social purpose exemplifies the spirit of the Sir Misha Black Medal.

The 2025 Sir Misha Black Awards Ceremony will take place at Imperial College London on 18 November 2025.