SEE Design Policy Monitor

Design Wales has been leading the SEE project since 2008. SEE has been sharing international best practice to integrate design into innovation policies and programmes. A key initiative has been to examine innovation and design policies and programmes developments between 2009 and 2011. The results are in and we present the SEE Design Policy Monitor, which reveals the scope and depth of policy provisions for design an innovation in the partner regions/countries.

Design policy has been a hot topic recently with the results of the European Commission’s call for projects as part of the European Design Innovation Initiative expected in January 2012, BIS publishing the UK’s Innovation and Research Strategy including design for innovation and the Design Council event ‘Should government have a design strategy?’.

As part of the Design Policy Monitor, we examined the innovation policies for the EU’s 27 Member States, which revealed that 17 out 27 have design included (in some form) in a national level strategy. This demonstrates that in the context of economic renewal, design is being recognised as a driver of innovation. On 8 December, the UK Department for Business Innovation and Skills published their Innovation and Research Strategy for Growth with an entire section devoted to design for innovation. Here are some key quotes:

‘Design can be transformative for companies, through leading or supporting product and process innovation, for managing the innovation process itself, for the commercialisation of science, and the delivery of public services.’ P. 35

‘Design thinking can play an important role in strengthening the public sector’s capacity to be an intelligent customer as it involves bringing together different perspectives, including industry and users of a service or product, to understand needs. The use of design can deliver cost savings and improved efficiency in the delivery of public services and help to generate solutions to societal challenges.’ P. 85

The role of design in the new strategy was presented by a representative of BIS at the Design Council policy event on 1 December. Gavin Cawood also presented an overview of the state of play for design policy across Europe. The videos are available on the Design Council website.

Design Wales and SEE will continue to monitor policies for innovation and design over the next few years to examine new trends in the future at European, national and regional levels.

Next steps for the Design Wales manifesto & petition

At the Cardiff Design Festival 2010, Design Wales launched the Design for Innovation in Wales Manifesto and Petition. The petition has been discussed in four Petition Committee meetings to date and Design Wales has had the opportunity to engage with Lesley Griffiths, the Deputy Minister for Science, Innovation and Skills. Recently, Design Wales was invited by the Petitions Committee to identify where further action can be taken to realise the aims of the manifesto and petition. On 12 July, the Assembly Members agreed to raise our requests at the Welsh Government's Enterprise and Business Committee.

Read the submission to the Petitions Committee by Design Wales below:

Design is gaining recognition around the world as a driver of innovation in industry, services and society. Design is a problem-solving process. It is an approach to innovation that is user-centred, creative and viable.

The European Commission strategy Innovation Union identifies design as a key discipline for innovation in the private sector for bringing products and services to market, in the public sector for making public services better correspond to citizens needs as well as for addressing social challenges:

‘Our strengths in design and creativity must be better exploited. We must champion social innovation. We must develop a better understanding of public sector innovation. Design is of particular importance as a key discipline to bring ideas to the market, transforming them into user-friendly and appealing products.’

To raise awareness and understanding of this strategic role for design among politicians, policy-makers and the public in Wales, in October 2010, Design Wales launched a Manifesto and Petition. The Petition gained 369 signatures and called for the National Assembly for Wales and Welsh Government to consider the role of design in future policies and programmes for innovation, public services and social enterprise. The Manifesto recommendations were met with overwhelming support when on 5 October 2010 Assembly Members unanimously passed an amendment to the strategy Economic Renewal to ‘harness the power of design for innovation in industry, services and society’. In response to the Petitions Committee request to provide insight into where further action can be taken, Design Wales has identified how design can play a strategic role in contributing to the Welsh Government’s policy priorities:

• Creative industries

• Manufacturing and service industries

• Public services

• Education

• Social enterprise

Creative industries

In 2008, the Creative and Cultural Skills (Sector Skills Council) published the economic ‘footprint’ of the creative industries revealing that the professional design sector in Wales accounts for the greatest proportion (22%) of Wales’ creative industries. In addition, the creative industries contribute £465M to the Welsh economy, of which 36% is generated by design. However, the strategic contribution of design to the creative industries was overlooked in the ‘Heart of Digital Wales’ review in favour of music and broadcasting. Since the Economic Renewal programme identifies the creative industries as a priority sector of strategic importance for the Welsh economy and as design constitutes a significant driver of competitiveness, design merits better representation in policy discussions. Design Wales calls for design to have a representative on both the Digital Wales Board and the Economic Renewal Creative Industries Sector Panel to champion the role of design within the creative industries in Wales to support the development of this important professional sector.

Manufacturing and service industries

In Economic Renewal, the Welsh Government encourages businesses, particularly the advanced manufacturing sector, to invest in design to develop new products . While this commitment represents a significant step, the interpretation of design is limited to product development; this does not reflect the broader strategic role attributed to design in Innovation Union where design is also a driver of innovation in services. Service innovation has been identified by the European Commission as an area of increasing importance in the coming decade . Those products proving most successful in competitive markets are those integrated into an advanced customer experience with intelligent services adding value to the product itself. The Welsh Government is already supporting the Service Design Programme delivered to the advanced manufacturing sector and could play a role in raising demand for innovation in services across Wales. Design Wales calls for the Welsh Government to examine the role of design in service innovation and attribute a more strategic role to design in the Economic Renewal Programme.

Public services

Design is proving itself as a process for delivering more efficient public services since it involves both the service provider and the service user (citizens) in an engaging process of identifying inefficiencies and proposing solutions that are creative, user-centred and viable. The Welsh Government is examining more effective public service delivery as part of the New Models of Service Delivery Work Stream. However, since design has not been articulated as a priority by the Welsh Government, design is not one of the models under consideration. Design Wales calls for the New Models of Service Delivery Work Stream to consider the role of design in delivering more citizen-focused public services.

Education

The Dyson report identifies design as a bridge between the STEM subjects. ‘To a large extent, the STEM agenda has also ignored the silent D (design). Used as a tool to make products a reality, design links engineering to business and the end-user. At school level, design and technology should receive the same priority status as science and maths’ as design is the subject that combines analytical and practical skills. Design Wales calls for the Welsh Government to recognise design as the link between the STEM subjects and integrate design into the STEM curriculum.

Social enterprise

As a dynamic tool, design is a process for addressing social challenges. Social enterprises should be citizen-centred and the Welsh Government has made a commitment to further this agenda in the Social Enterprise Action Plan for Wales . By involving a broad spectrum of stakeholders in creative processes, design can enable citizens to come up with their own solutions for social enterprises. Design Wales calls for design to play a role in Social Enterprise Action Plan programmes.

In order to make these ambitions for design a reality, Design Wales is supporting four Assembly Members in establishing a Cross-Party Group for Design and Innovation. The aim of the Design and Innovation Cross-Party Group is to raise and maintain awareness at a policy and programme level of the role of design in realising innovation within industry (for competitive advantage), public services (for greater efficiency and citizen focus) and social innovation (for greater public participation).

Design Wales are currently active in communicating the role of design in innovation policy by leading a European network of 11 organisations since 2008 called SEE. Speaking at the SEE project’s Policy, Innovation and Design Conference in the Flemish Parliament in March 2011, Peter Dröll, Head of Unit the Commission’s Directorate General for Enterprise and Industry stated that “Our vision would be that in 2020, design is a fully acknowledged, well-known, well-recognised element of innovation policy across Europe, at the European level, at the national level and at regional level”.

Wales has the opportunity to be regional forerunners in championing the design for innovation agenda and Design Wales is committed to enabling the Welsh Government make this happen. Design Wales calls for design to be recognised both horizontally across Welsh Government policies as well as vertically at policy, programme and project levels. Design Wales calls for the Welsh Government to develop a vision for design in Wales as has been articulated by the Danish Government.

to read the transcript of the meeting click here.

SEE launches Policy Booklet 4

The SEE project, led by Design Wales, has recently launched SEE Policy Booklet 4, which examines the role of design in bringing innovative ideas to market in the context of i) new product and service development; ii) design support for SMEs and iii) national design systems.

i) Section one demonstrates that design features not only at intermittent points in the innovation process but can form part of every aspect of the process from generating new product and service concepts and understanding user needs to a product’s production, use and ultimate disposal.

ii) Section two describes the lessons learnt during the course of the SEE project in delivering design support programmes focused on enabling industry to develop new products and services.

iii) Section three contextualises the role of design support programmes within the broader national system for design, which includes other elements that make up a nation or regions’ design resources and actors.

Since design is increasingly highlighted in innovation policies (such as the European Commission’s strategy Innovation Union), mapping regional and national design systems can enable policy-makers to identify opportunities and obstacles in the way actors interact within the system in order to develop better programmes and policies.

SEE is a network of 11 European partners exploring how to integrate design into regional and national innovation policies. Electronic copies of all our publications are available to download from the SEE website: www.seeproject.org/publications.

SEE are RegioStars Finalists

On 23 June 2011, Design Wales attended the RegioStars award ceremony hosted by the European Commissioner for Regional Policy, Johannes Hahn, in the Bozar, Brussels. The SEE project, led by Design Wales, was short listed as finalists for the 2011 award and although we did not win, the feedback from the judges was very positive:

“This is an interesting policy-building project in a forward-looking area – design as a source of innovation. Its broad partnership and EU endorsement gives credibility to the statement that it paves the way towards new innovation policies, suited to regions outside the Science and Technology hubs.”

SEE was nominated for the award by the Welsh European Funding Office (WEFO). WEFO Director, Damien O'Brien said that being named RegioStars finalists is an excellent achievement. Wales did not come back empty handed as the ‘Growth in environmental marine science’ (GEMS) project were named winners!

Design Wales also had the opportunity to engage with the Deputy Minister for European Programmes, Alun Davies AM and discuss plans to establish the cross-party group for design and innovation in the National Assembly. We will provide an update about the cross-party group soon!

SEE, a network of eleven European partners sharing experience on how to integrate design into regional, national and European innovation policies, co-financed by ERDF through INTERREG IVC.

SEE Policy Booklet 3 'Evaluating Design' is launched

The SEE project, led by Design Wales, has just published Policy Booklet 3 entitled 'Evaluating Design: Understanding the Return on Investment in Companies, National Industry, Programmes & Policies, Economy & Society'.

A lack of knowledge and tools to evaluate the rate of return on design investment is often cited as a severe barrier to advancing the understanding of design’s value among policy-makers and civil servants. With design firmly on the European political agenda as part of the strategy ‘Innovation Union’, policy-makers across Europe will be looking at how design can meet challenges in industry, services and society. However, without insight on evaluating design and its strengths compared with other disciplines, we risk missing key opportunities for consolidating the contribution of design to competitiveness and social innovation in our regions.

This third SEE Policy Booklet provides an overview of current practice in design evaluation and identifies actions to improve these methods. The Policy Booklet notes that there are several different dimensions that must be taken into consideration when investigating design evaluation, which should include micro and macro levels in both the private and public sectors. :Each section of the booklet discusses a different dimension of this framework, exploring how design can be evaluated in different contexts and providing illustrative case studies. The four sections are:

1. Return on investment in design for individual companies

2. Return on investment in design in national industry

3. Return on investment of public funds in design programmes or policies

4. Role of design and its impact on the national economy and society.

This publication is one of the outputs of the SEE project, a network of eleven European partners engaging with European, national and regional governments to integrate design into public policy. The project is co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund through the INTERREG IVC programme. This is the third of four SEE Policy Booklets to be published between 2009 and 2011. An electronic copy of the booklet is available to download from the SEE website: www.seeproject.org/publications. If you would like to receive future SEE Policy Booklets please email info@seeproject.org.

SEE bulletin 4 now available!

The SEE project, led by Design Wales, has just launched the fourth edition of the SEE bulletin, the only publication entirely dedicated to discussing design and innovation policies and programmes across Europe and beyond.

Over the course of the SEE project, we have observed how the use of design has been evolving. More and more, we are seeing that design approaches are not only being applied to product development, manufacturing and technology, but to a growing array of other domains such as the public sector, social innovation and sustainability projects. This edition delves a bit deeper into how design techniques are being applied to specialist scenarios such as peace and security.

This issue includes:

• Research: Designing Programmes in Contexts of Peace and Security – Derek B Miller, Lisa Rudnick (United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research) and Lucy Kimbell (Saïd Business School, Oxford University).
• Interviews: Design Policy and Promotion Map with insights from Chile, Croatia, India and South Africa.
• Research: National Design Systems – Dr Gisele Raulik-Murphy (Design Wales, UWIC).
• Case Study: Design Advisory Service (Canada).
• Special Report: SEE Project Activities and Results.
• SEE Library: papers and documents related to design and innovation policies.
• Design Policy Conference: SEE project final conference will be held on 29 March 2011.

SEE bulletins are distributed to over 60 countries around the world and are available to download from www.seeproject.org/publications.

Don't forget we are still collecting signatures for the petition 'Design for Innovation in Wales', which is an output of the SEE project. Your signature is very important in generating attention at political level. To sign visit www.designwales.org.

SEE is a network of 11 European partners exploring how to integrate design into policy. The project is co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund through the INTERREG IVC programme. If you would like to receive SEE communication in the future please email us at info@seeproject.org

International response to launch of the second SEE policy booklet

We have had a great response to the launch of the latest SEEProject Policy booklet from leading design organisations around the World. The European Commission, ICSID, BEDA and the New York University Design Department have all highlighted the latest booklet in their on-line news feeds.

The SEEProject is intended to help our understanding of the role design can play in realising regional and national innovation  regional policy. The most recent booklet aimed at policy makers is entitled Realising Sustainability and Innovation through Design and can be found on the SEEProject website along with other resources.

Design Wales are the lead partner for the SEEProject, which is funded by the European Commission through the INTERREG programme.

Updates from the SEE Project

May has been a busy month for the SEE project and Design Wales:

- Launched second SEE Policy Booklet – Realising Sustainability and Innovation through Design: Making it Happen in Communities, Industry, Public Sector and Policy-Making.
- Released SEE bulletin issue 3.
- Posted the Design Policy and Promotion Map on the website
- Held third SEE thematic workshop on Evaluating Innovation and Design Policies

Since policies for sustainability and innovation are expected to serve an increasing array of purposes, this second SEE Policy Booklet aims to demonstrate how design can incite a sustainable and innovative mindset among all players in society. For communities, industry, public sector and policy-making the publication outlines the rationale behind policy intervention, explores how design can be employed to realise sustainability and innovation, provides illustrative case studies and puts forward policy proposals.

In this SEE bulletin we have invited Ezio Manzini, Professor of Design at Politecnico di Milano and a leading expert on sustainable design, to contribute the research paper. His article explains social innovation and how design can play a role in this context. Jean Schneider, from the Agence pour la Promotion de la Création Industrielle (APCI), provides a summary of the 7th European Conference on the ‘Challenges of Design Promotion’. The Design Policy and Promotion Programme Map presents interviews from Botswana, Brazil, Kenya, Latvia and Poland. We present two case studies: the Irish programme ‘Innovation by Design’ guided six SMEs through a design approach to understanding client needs and identifying the right ideas to commercialise. The Public Waste Agency of Flanders has launched the Ecolizer 2.0, a smart tool that enables designers to incorporate eco-design into innovative products. Finally, the SEE Library is back again.

To get a global perspective on the growing number and increasing maturity of design policies and promotion programmes, this map presents statements from design practitioners from several countries around the world. Each statement provides us with an overview of the current developments in their country and outlines how design fits into government strategies for fostering innovation. It is now available on the SEE website!

For more information about the SEE workshop visit earlier blog post or the event report.

SEE is a network of eleven European design organisations (co-financed by INTERREG IVC / ERDF) working to integrate design into regional, national and European innovation policy.

Design Evaluation for Public Policy

On Monday 15th and Tuesday 16th March 2010, Design Wales attended the National School of Government course ‘Evaluating Public Policy and Programmes’ in anticipation of the third SEE workshop. Design Wales is Lead Partner of the SEE Project, a network of eleven design organisations examining how to integrate design into regional policy. SEE is operating from September 2008 to June 2011, co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund through the INTERREG IVC programme. The third SEE workshop will be held in Florence on 10th and 11th May and will focus on ‘Evaluation Tools for Implementing Design Policy’. As Lord Kelvin stated in the Worldwide Governance Indicators brochure, ‘If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it’. Evaluation is a key stage in the policy cycle, one which is too often overlooked due to lack to resources. The course involved a six stage policy simulation exercise which addressed each step in the process of evaluation for evidence-based policy-making. The course will not only provide input for the thematic workshop but will also provide valuable input for the third SEE Policy Booklet on the same topic. As James Moultrie mentions in the first SEE bulletin, ‘Whilst there is some evidence to demonstrate the value of design to the firm, there are very few studies that have successfully demonstrated the value of design at a regional or national level’. Therefore evaluation is one of many barriers to achieving the SEE objective of integrating design into regional policy. The absence of a pan-European definition for design means that design is hard to measure and if you cannot measure performance, you cannot evaluate its contribution to public policy. Therefore the challenge set for the third SEE workshop will be investigating various tools and methods for evaluating design in a policy context.

SEE Policy Booklet Launch

On the 9th November 2009, the SEE project launched its first Policy Booklet on Integrating Design into Regional Innovation Policy at the SEE workshop in Copenhagen. SEE is a network of eleven European partners working to lobby our national and regional governments to assimilate design and creativity into public policy. The project is co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) through the INTERREG IVC programme.

The SEE Policy Booklet presents an overview of innovation policy priorities in the SEE partner regions. These priorities were identified from national and regional policy documents and contrasted with the strategic priorities for innovation identified by the European Commission. From this comparative analysis six key issues emerged as common across the policy agendas:

- Innovation in Services
- Public Procurement
- Collaborative Clusters & Networks
- Lead Markets & Eco-innovation
- Intellectual Property Rights
- Broadening the Scope of Innovation

For each of these priorities, the SEE Policy Booklet outlines the drivers and obstacles for enhancing the performance of regional innovation policy, explores how design can be used to address the issue, provides illustrative case studies and puts forward policy proposals.

This is the first of four SEE Policy Booklets to be published between 2009 and 2011. An electronic copy of the booklet is available to download from the SEE website: http://seeproject.org/publications. If you would like to receive future SEE Policy Booklets please email info@seeproject.org.

SEE workshop in Copenhagen.

As lead partners in the SEE network we've spent the last two days in Copenhagen at the Danish Design Centre (one of the other 10 SEE network partners) hearing presentations and working on issues related to design and sustainability.

We realised several years ago that getting partners together to simply listen to speeches is not enough to make a network effective. So to make sure we all engage meaningfully with the issues being discussed we prepare a series of activities for the partners to work through, this time facilitated for us by the Bigger Picture from Denmark; who take an interesting approach to recording the proceedings.

The output from the workshop in Denmark will be a second policy booklet that provides guidance to policy makers on aspects of design related to sustainability. The first SEE policy booklet was launched earlier this month and addresses the link between design and innovation policy.

SEE bulletin issue 1

New! We are delighted to announce the launch of the first SEE bulletin, one of six to be published twice a year between 2009 and 2011.

This edition includes a research paper presented by Dr James Moultrie (University of Cambridge), interviews with Mika Takagi (Design Policy Office, Ministry of Economy, Trade & Industry, Japan) and Dr Julio Frias Peña (Design & Innovation Centre, Monterrey Institute of Technology, Mexico), an article on the future of EU innovation policy, a special report on the SEE partners’ study visit to Helsinki, two design policy case studies and a Library of references to related research and policy documents.

The SEE bulletins will be exploring the opportunities for integrating design and creativity into regional and national innovation policy as well as policy areas relating to competitiveness, entrepreneurship, sustainability and economic and social development. We hope you enjoy reading it and we welcome contributions, comments and feedback.

If you would like to receive SEE bulletins in the future please email info@seeproject.org

SEE project - First thematic workshop in Lyon

Following the opening conference in Cardiff last October, a study trip to Finland in May (to better understand how their design policy was realised) and the first of four thematic workshops having taken place in Lyon last month the SEE project is well under way.
The SEE project is funded by the European Commission under the INTERREG IVC programme and brings together a network of 11 design and innovation organisations from across Europe to further understand how design can help realise national and regional innovation policy. That’s interesting enough, but each of the 11 design partners has to not only demonstrate a close link to their regional policy makers but also ensure they bring their representatives with them to the workshops and events.

Gisele (Design Wales) and Justin (Centre for Design Innovation, Ireland) discuss a point!

Working for their lunch.
It might seem obvious, but from our experience of a previous network (SEEdesign) the most constructive and rewarding outputs resulted when we pushed the partners to work on addressing a topic together – rather than only listening to presentations from regional initiatives. This is the approach we are taking with the SEE project and in June the partners and their regional policy makers (24 people all together) gathered in Lyon to work on developing material to guide policy makers on - Integrating creativity and design into regional innovation policy – which is the first of four themed workshops to produce policy guidelines.

The innovation policy map taking shape.

Mapping regional policy.
Using a combination of Pecha Kucha presentations and large format questionnaires on the walls we were able to quickly map the clarity, longevity and scope of each regional or national innovation policy and related design programme. We are all European but each region and nation has a unique economic, political, industrial and cultural environment that has resulted in a broad variety of approaches to innovation policy and related support for design. This approach to mapping the current state was very successful and we intend to further interpret the results before we make them available more widely.
Following the mapping exercise the two groups, design organisations and policy makers, divided to discuss how design could be integrated into innovation policy and the barriers to actually making this happen. By placing these thoughts in priority of importance on the walls of the meeting room the groups were able to switch positions to interpret and comment on the postings from their policy or design colleagues.

Debating the results.

Publishing the results.
The findings from this workshop will be published as guidelines for policy makers. To get this right we are asking the policy makers what they actually want in terms of format and supporting information; by doing so we are hopefully taking more of a user-centred approach and will produce something that’s actually used rather than filed!
The next workshop is not until November and takes place in Denmark, but there is a great deal to do before then.

Gavin