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.