Craft Scotland has published an open letter calling for the reinstatement of undergraduate degrees in Jewellery and Silversmithing, Textiles, and Performance Costume at Edinburgh College of Art. The European Crafts Alliance has joined organisations and individuals from across the sector in supporting the campaign. These are long-established courses. Generations of makers have passed through their workshops to learn specialist techniques, work with dedicated equipment and develop their own practice. The Textiles programme alone has remained among the UK’s top six in the Guardian University Guide for nine years. In 2026, it ranked first in Scotland and second in the UK.
UPDATE!
Craft Scotland has now launched a public petition calling for the reversal of the planned closures. The petition gathered over 3,000 signatures shortly after launching. Craft Scotland is asking the international craft network to add its support. You can sign the petition and leave comments, which Craft Scotland will append to its public advocacy documents. The organisation also continues to gather formal signatories for the open letter.
A generation of skills at a turning point
The closures come at a time of considerable generational change in skilled occupations across Europe. Cedefop recorded around 927,000 handicraft and printing workers in the EU in 2022, with handicraft workers making up 56% of this group. By 2035, around 521,000 people across the broader occupational group are expected to leave their occupations, mostly through retirement. Even with an overall decline in employment projected for this group, an estimated 387,000 job openings will still need to be filled.
But the value of passing on these skills reaches much further than employment numbers.
What craft skills carry with them
Europe’s craft market is worth an estimated 50 billion €. Behind that figure are thousands of small businesses and independent practices, but also knowledge of materials, processes and places that has accumulated over generations. Craftspeople teach. They repair and restore. They work across design, architecture and other creative industries. They run workshops and community programmes. Their skills move into other parts of economic and cultural life.
Recent research is also giving us a clearer picture of the social value of making. The ECA’s Crafting Health and Wellbeing study, conducted by researchers at the University of Eastern Finland, surveyed 458 people across Europe alongside a review of scientific literature and interviews with practitioners, educators and healthcare staff. More than 90% of those surveyed said crafting supported their mental health. The research also found links with stress reduction, social connection and cognitive health. None of this happens without people first having somewhere to learn.
Places where knowledge is passed on
The CRAFTOUR policy paper describes places of learning as part of Europe’s cultural infrastructure. Workshops, schools, guilds and ateliers are where knowledge moves between generations, often through direct contact with experienced practitioners, materials and tools.
Universities are one part of that landscape. Vocational schools, apprenticeships and independent workshops play their part too. Different crafts require different routes into practice. What they share is a need for places where skills can be learned, tested and passed on. That is what makes the proposed closures in Edinburgh relevant beyond one university. A course is not simply a route to a qualification. Around it sit workshops and equipment, teaching experience, accumulated knowledge and generations of graduates who carry those skills elsewhere.
The European Crafts Alliance statement
As part of the sector response, the European Crafts Alliance provided the following statement:
Across Europe, we are seeing how difficult it is to transmit craft skills and knowledge from one generation to the next. Losing a long-established course such as Jewellery and Silversmithing at Edinburgh College of Art would make that challenge harder still. Places where craftspeople can learn from experienced practitioners, work with specialist tools and materials, and develop their practice take decades to build and are almost irreplaceable once lost. The European Crafts Alliance stands with Craft Scotland in calling for the continuation of this important course and the knowledge and expertise it helps sustain.
photo: Craft Scotland via Unsplash