Meetings at the Design Council and the Parliamentary Group for Design

On Monday 27th July, Gisele and Anna went to London for meetings at the Design Council and the Parliamentary Group for Design. The objective of the trip was to discuss the best format for presenting policy recommendations, in order to ensure that the Policy Recommendation Booklets that we will be producing in cooperation with other SEE partners provide the best support for drafting design policy.

The first meeting was with Mel Taylor (Head of Knowledge & Research) and Sara El Nusairi (Head of Government Relations) at the Design Council. The meeting was an opportunity to gain an insight into effective methods of lobbying the government. Sara described how they are encouraging the government to adopt a more systematic approach to design policy and provided us with examples of policy submissions they had produced on various topics. Mel discussed her work on evaluating the impact of their design support programmes, which we are keen to include as a case study on the SEE library. The meeting gave us real food for thought on how to achieve our policy objectives.

Our second meeting was with Jocelyn Bailey, Manager of the Associate Parliamentary Group for Design and Innovation (APGDI), which is the leading advocate for design in Parliament. We learnt about some of the group’s projects including a series of recommendations to improve public procurement, which will be presented to Parliament in October. As Jocelyn will be preparing her own policy suggestions, she was able to give us insightful tips on what strategy would be best for presenting our booklets to policy-makers in the SEE partner regions.

Having done our research, we are looking forward to collaborating with the SEE partners in developing a blueprint for our first Policy Recommendation Booklet on ‘Integrating Creativity and Design into Regional Innovation Policy’.

Services for regional business & design support programmes

We can now offer a portfolio of services for both business support organisations and regional policy makers. The first workshops will be delivered in October and more details and dates will be announced shortly.

These and other activities will be the basis for a new organisation we will launch in the next few months that will better define our objectives and capabilities. At that time Design Wales will become a regional brand for our activities in Wales and as a regional partner in the European SEE network.

So far our portfolio of services includes:

Support services & workshops delivered to business.
(either directly to industry or in partnership with regional business support organisations).
Managing new product development.
Includes 5 day-long workshops over 10 weeks that identify a design champion within an organisation and develops their skills to manage design and increase their capacity for new product development.

Managing service innovation & design.
Includes 2 day-long workshops to raise awareness of how design can help services businesses be innovative, followed by practical tools and techniques to start making it happen.

Brand Essentials workshops.
Half-day workshops to help SMEs understand the value of design, take ownership of their own brand, draft design briefs and identify appropriate expertise.

Colour & trend prediction seminars for the fashion & textile sector.
Seasonal half day seminars aimed at the fashion & textile sectors.

Support services for regional business support staff.
Design, innovation and creativity for business support staff.
A day-long practical workshop for general business support personnel to help their understanding of design, how this can help the businesses they support be more innovative and how they can facilitate them in working with the most appropriate local design expertise.

Development course for specialist design advisory staff.
A two-day short course to help new specialist design or innovation advisors in the transition from industry to being effective part of the business support infrastructure.

Recruitment of design & manufacturing advisory staff.
Assistance in the recruitment of staff with the combination of the right industrial experience, business knowledge and approach towards business support.

Support services for national & regional economic development offices.
Design and Innovation for policy makers - introduction.
A one-day workshop for regional policy makers that provides an overview of the current and potential future state of European policy and best practice models of support.

Design and Innovation for policy makers – practical tools & techniques.
A three-day practical workshop that includes the introductory course above but goes on to provide practical sessions that enable delegates to map their regional design & innovation system, develop appropriate intervention strategies and measure the potential future outcomes.

Bespoke regional design policy, strategy and support advice.
We can provide bespoke support to;
Map national design systems,
Develop regional design policy and support programmes,
Establish evaluation models for current & futures support programmes.
Conduct independent audits of the impact, service quality and regional integration of
current regional business support programmes.

New member of staff builds our policy expertise.

Just under two weeks has gone by since Anna Whicher joined Design Wales as a Research Officer within the SEE project. She has already proved effective in encouraging our SEE partners to engage with their own regional policy makers to establish what it is they really want from the policy guidelines we will be producing later in the year – and so by taking a user-centred approach.

After finishing her undergraduate studies in French and History, specialising in European integration, at the University of Reading, Anna went on to gain an MSc in European Public Policy at UCL. She already has experience of working in political circles from working in Westminster for her local MP and also spent a year working as assistant marketing and communication manager at Siemens in Paris. She will be using her experience to support the smooth running of the SEE project and helping us to best understand the part design has to play in European, national and regional policies.

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

An update on our activities

There is growing interest in how design is being supported and promoted in regions and nations around the World. Design is increasingly acknowledged as a key element in the realisation of innovation and wider economic development policies and strategies, even though it is currently primarily only linked to the development of technology and new products. In 2010 or 2011 a revised innovation, or possible individual design policy, at a European level is likely to highlight the potential for design in the development of not only manufactured products but also non-technological innovations and public sector services.

Building on 15 years experience of the delivery of design support programmes and leading networks in the UK and Europe, Design Wales is an international centre of expertise for design support and related national & regional policy.

Our programme of activities includes:

Support services delivered directly to business.
Delivered on behalf of regional economic development offices and independent business organisations these workshops, training courses and events support industry in understanding and managing design issues such as branding, new product development and service innovation.

Support services for regional development offices / innovation programmes.
To help regional economic development offices understand the role of design, develop their own regional policy & support programmes and train local business support staff.

Networks.
Design Wales already leads a network of 11 European design organisations and regional policy makers and established the UK design support network in 2007. The insight gained from engagement with this broad network of partners provides invaluable knowledge of the current level of regional engagement and best practice delivery. (visit http://www.seeproject.org/).
The SEE network involves both design organisations and policy makers from each of the 11 European regions. SEE is funded by the European Commission under the INTERREG IV C programme.

Research.
Design Wales undertakes research to understand the role of design support and promotion in economic development at a policy level and to further highlight best practice in support programmes. Design Wales have hosted a bi-annual International Workshop on Design Support (IWDS) since 2002 each time attracting up to 100 delegates from around the World.


In addition to the SEE network we are already delivering design support services and providing advice to several regional business support organisations in Wales, Scotland and as far afield as South America. We are also starting to grow again. This week a new member of staff joined us with specialist knowledge of European policy to help us further understand how design can be integrated into or developed alongside innovation policy and support programmes.

With changes and cuts in the business support infrastructure, the wider economic downturn and the potential for future European and regional policy to at least include significant aspects of design and non-technological innovation these are exciting and challenging times. We intend to make full use of our past business support experience, policy knowledge and networking capability. We have already formed a revised management board and over the next month we will announce firmer plans for our objectives and activities.

Free advisory services come to an end

As of 31st March 2009 Design Wales will no longer provide a free advisory service for Welsh industry.

All free advisory support services for industry are now provided under the banner of the Welsh Assembly Governments Flexible Support for Buisness programme (http://www.business-support-wales.wales.gov.uk/).

Design Wales will continue with a revised programme of activities to be announced in the near future that build on our experience for the provision of practical services and events to encourage and facilitate the use of design and support the development of regional design policy.

Design Wales Presents Design Futures 2009

date: 12th March 2009
venue: National Museum of Wales, Cardiff
time: doors open 7:00pm for 7:10 start

Design Wales would like to invite you to the annual Design Futures event.

In addition to presenting the annual Ffres Awards to the best entries from graphic, textile and fashion design students from Wales, this year’s speakers will be:

Angus Struthers: Head of Service Design
Virgin Atlantic
“Find out why Virgin Atlantic has a Service Design team, what we do and how we do it”.

Steve Masterson, Partner & COO,
Kiska Design, Austria
Founded in Salzburg in 1990, KISKA has grown to be one of Europe's largest design companies with more than 100 employees from 15 nations offering design services that range from brand strategy to transport and exhibition design.


The Ffres Awards
Launched to help design students from Wales gain experience in working with industry, this year’s briefs for the competition were set and judged by:
Seren for graphic design
New Look for fashion design
Mothercare for textile design
All three companies will be talking about the brief, the challenges they set for the students and presenting the awards to the winning entries on the night.

The Design Futures event is free but all delegates must be registered in advance.
To request a ticket and receive more information please
e-mail enquiries@designwales.org or call 0845 303 1400