In Dublin, nature meets future – an excellent basis for sustainable design, Dublin, with its visionary talents across all fields of design is growing the potential to be a model for a bridging cultures and connecting the world by design.

- Prof. H.c. Helmut Langer, Past President International Council of Graphic Design Associations

DUBLIN’S BID FOR WORLD DESIGN CAPITAL 2014

Rising to several centimetres thickness, each copy bearing one of 30 different covers submitted by 30 different designers, comprising a staggering 416 pages of dense research and vivid imagery and accompanied by a specially made film – Dublin’s bid for World Design Capital was submitted for the end of March deadline to the competition agency ICSID. Entitled “PIVOT Dublin – Turn Design Inside Out”, the bid celebrates ambiguity, diversity and difference.

Dublin is a paradox (…) it is not about dour perfection or monotony. It’s about everything that’s possible when people, relationships, creativity and culture collide.

The bid is a collaboration between the four Dublin Municipal Authorities and has National Government support. Irish Prime Minister (Taoiseach) Enda Kenny, considers participation in the World Design Capital project a significant contribution to his Government’s ambitions for Ireland as a creative and innovative economy: In his letter of support for Dublin’s bid he says “this designation if awarded would provide a valuable opportunity for us to showcase Irelands vibrant design and creative industries while the invigoration provided by the proposed programme of events and projects would bring a renewed excitement and vibrancy to the city building on our experiences as City of Science 2012”.

The design and delivery of the bid document and associated film was undertaken by an interdisciplinary consortium of Red & Grey Design; Emma Curley Architect and Areaman Productions (film). Using material gathered from a year of exploratory workshops and conversations facilitated by the co-ordination team led by the Dublin City Architect, they have produced a document that arguably represents the most comprehensive research into a wider Irish design culture since the pioneering report Design in Ireland, which led to the establishment of the Kilkenny Design workshop in 1965. It is hoped that Dublin’s bid will act as a similar catalyst towards developing a shared understanding of the benefits design thinking can bring to economic, environmental, social and political challenges.

This ambition is encapsulated in the bid title ‘PIVOT Dublin – Turn Design Inside Out’ a response to Dublin’s unleashed potential to use design as the vehicle to turn things inside out; to adapt, innovate and grow. A key strength in Dublin’s bid lies in its diversity. Alongside the more established design disciplines such as product, craft, fashion and graphic design, it features architecture and urban design, as well as the new digital design cultures and reflects Ireland’s recent success in animation, film and the gaming industry. Overwhelmed by a plethora of design events that take place in the city, the biggest challenge for the bid team was in the editing of the information. To tell Dublin’s story, the team focused on a few key projects that have transformed the city – including the landmark new bridges that link north and south along the River Liffey, the community connections made by the Special Olympics in 2003, and the international outreach of a Digital Hub project that redesigns computers for schools in Africa.

The Pivot Dublin bid strategy identifies an opportunity to use Dublin as a test bed for new ideas which address local need yet have global relevance. The bid explores these challenges and opportunities under four themes, which represent issues that face all cities; ‘Connecting Cities, ‘Making Cities Lighter’, ‘Making Cities Flow’; and ‘Making Cities Smile’. These themes are being explored through the development of ‘seed’ project collaborations between the public sector, business and design communities. Central to the bid strategy is that the seed projects start in as soon as the bid is submitted and this work is now underway.

The PIVOT Dublin team hopes that the bid will convince an international audience that Dublin is a repository of much talent and a solid tradition of great Irish design. Above all, the bid conveys what a “cool city” Dublin is. Perhaps it does not tell a conventional story but it’s a fascinating one – a story about a very sociable city for an extraordinary design experience. The Dublin design community agrees; as is evident in this testimonial by graphic designer David Smith of Atelier, the first Irish Designer to be elected to the AGI (Alliance Graphique Internationale):

That is what I would love to emerge from it; the legacy. That we use design to make a difference. If that came out of it at the end – win, lose or fail – that would be the best thing that we could have gotten for our city and the bid certainly presents that opportunity.

More information on Dublin’s bid for World Design Capital 2014, is available from www.pivotdublin.com

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 in Government. 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.

This third SEE Policy Booklet provides an overview of current practice in design evaluation and identifies actions to improve these methods at micro and macro levels in both the private and public sectors. 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 an output of the European network SEE, funded by ERDF/INTERREG IVC, which has been engaging with national and regional governments to integrate design into public policy.

Download your copy from: www.seeproject.org/publications.

Issue 5 of the SEE Design Bulletin is available for down load at:

http://www.seeproject.org/publications

The SEE project is a network of eleven partners in Europe engaging with regional and national government to integrate design into policy, particularly innovation policy. The project is co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund through the INTERREG IVC programme.

This conference is the project’s final event and aims to provide delegates with an overview of design’s role in innovation, recent design policy developments in Europe, examples of successful design policies and promotion programmes. The programme will be opened by Polish MEP, Jan Olbrycht with reflections on design as part of the Europe 2020 strategy.

Highlights from the conference include:

Design as part of innovation policy in a global context

Gavin Cawood / Operations Director, Design Wales

Making design policy happen in Denmark: the journey since 1997

Anders Byriel / CEO of Kvadrat, Chairman, Danish Design Council

Innovate and integrate: Design support for companies in New Zealand

Judith Thompson / Director, Better by Design

Design policy in practice: innovative strategies for local authorities in Flanders

Patrick Janssens / Mayor of Antwerp

Jan Van Alsenoy / Association of Flemish Cities and Municipalities

Design as a Government capability

Bryan Boyer / Strategic Design Lead, SITRA – the Finnish Innovation Fund

EU Design and Innovation Initiative: What’s next for design in Europe?

Christine Simon / European Commission DG Enterprise and Industry.

Further information can be found on http://www.seeproject.org/.

Design Wales is calling upon the National Assembly for Wales to urge the Welsh Assembly Government to consider the potential significant role for design in future innovation, public service and social enterprise policies and programmes. This is in the light of increased commitment to design agenda by other nations around the world and in preparation for the new Innovation Policy published by the European Commission.

On the 14th October Design Wales launched the MANIFESTO: Design for Innovation in Wales: Industry, Services and Society. On the same day, the e-petition ‘Design for Innovation in Wales’ was opened on the National Assembly for Wales e-petition website.

Sign the petition.

The second policy booklet (PDF) from the SEE Project was recently published. There will be a total of four policy booklets over the course of the programme.

Design thinking can be a tool for realising social innovation and sustainable development by contributing to long-term behaviour change and integrating the user experience into significantly improved products, processes, services and systems. This Policy Booklet outlines the rationale behind policy intervention in this domain, explores how design can be employed to address social innovation and sustainable development, provides illustrative case studies and proposes policy recommendations. We have applied this framework under four headings: communities, industry, the public sector and policy-making.

In addition, the third SEE Bulletin (PDF) was published and features a case study on our own Innovation by Design programme. You can also download the entire case study review of the Innovation by Design programme (PDF).

FURTHER INFORMATION:

SEE : Sharing Experience Europe – Policy, Innovation & Design

SEE is a network of eleven European partners sharing knowledge and experience on how design can be integrated into regional and national policies to boost innovation, entrepreneurship, sustainability and social and economic development. The aim is to pool knowledge, share experiences, stimulate debate, develop new thinking and build rapport and credibility in order to influence policy. The project’s activities include: opening and closing conferences; thematic workshops involving partners and policy-makers; a study visit; a library of case studies; policy proposal booklets; an internal contacts database and the biannual SEE bulletin.

SEE is operating from September 2008 to June 2011, co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) through the INTERREG IVC programme. Design Wales is the project’s lead partner. The Centre for Design Innovation at IT Sligo is one of five Policy Recommendation Research Partners on the project.

On the 9th November 2009, the SEE project launched its first Policy Booklet on Integrating Design into Regional Innovation Policy (PDF) at the SEE network summit 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. If you would like to receive future SEE Policy Booklets please email info@seeproject.org.

FURTHER INFORMATION:

SEE

Sharing Experience Europe – Policy, Innovation & Design

SEE is a network of eleven European partners sharing knowledge and experience on how design can be integrated into regional and national policies to boost innovation, entrepreneurship, sustainability and social and economic development. The aim is to pool knowledge, share experiences, stimulate debate, develop new thinking and build rapport and credibility in order to influence policy. The project’s activities include: opening and closing conferences; thematic workshops involving partners and policy-makers; a study visit; a library of case studies; policy proposal booklets; an internal contacts database and the biannual SEE bulletin.

SEE is operating from September 2008 to June 2011, co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) through the INTERREG IVC programme. Design Wales is the project’s lead partner. The Centre for Design Innovation at IT Sligo is one of five Policy Recommendation Research Partners on the project.

This past week I attended the first of four thematic workshops as part of the Sharing Experience Europe (SEE) Interreg IVC project. Ireland is one of eleven European partners as well as one of five members of the Policy Recommendation Research Group. After each of the four thematic workshops, a research group partner is responsible for the publication of policy recommendations to be distributed to policy makers and governments. The first will be out in September on “integrating creativity and design into regional innovation policy.”

The first day in Lyon featured guest speakers from several countries, including Greg Coyle of the Applied Innovation Group of Enterprise Ireland. On the second day everyone got down to serious work as each of the eleven partners presented “pecha kucha” presentations on the state of design and innovation policy in their own countries (Ireland, PPT, 1.14MB). This led to a mapping exercise of current activities. We then turned our attention to identifying the opportunities and barriers of integrating creativity and design into regional innovation policy, both from the standpoint of design support bodies and policy makers.

One of the unique features of the SEE project, is each partner is encouraged to bring a policy maker to participate in the workshops. This will continue through the length of the programme.

We ended the second day by drawing a collective response to the EU public consultation on “Design as a driver of user-centred innovation.” The consultation is still accepting replies from both individuals and organisations until the end of this week, Friday, June 26. Do take the time to respond. By putting an EU recommendation in place, Member States will have an obligation to consider the role of design in not only innovation policy, but stand-alone design policy, or integration into other EU policy directives.

I’m a self-admitted policy skeptic; much more interested in action-based programmes. However, we are taking a user-centred approach in including policy makers in the workshops, as well as doing research on how to draft effective recommendations for our target-audience as outcomes.

Increasing demand is only one side of the equation however; it is just as important that there should be a broad and deep supply of designers who can provide services to business to help them add value to their products and services. Without them, an economy can be starved of a key input that helps to differentiate the goods and services it produces.

A range of interrelated issues governs the supply of designers who provide services to business. The role of education is critical, as is the aspiration of the individual and ultimately the market for their services. But there are also a number of other more subtle influences such as the role of the industry support bodies, the nature of continuous professional development and the business empathy of designers themselves.

This report examines the strengths and weaknesses of the sector and makes recommendations about how to build on those strengths in order to stimulate one small but important part of the economy that can create added-value to the economy as a whole. Given the similar barriers faced by the sector in Northern Ireland and Ireland, it makes sense to adopt a cooperative approach to optimise the potential of the sector.

Aidan Gough
DIRECTOR, STRATEGY & POLICY
InterTradeIreland

Download study (PDF, 568k)

The most important part of the forum was the closed conference that brought together 60+ Ministers of Education representing countries from all around the world. This conference was about the next steps that countries need to take in order to include technology in their education systems. This was a disappointing session, as we witnessed ministers playing a game of ‘Show and Tell’ instead of trying to figure out answers to their problems. We have heard a lot of aims and ambitions and everybody was talking about ‘what we should do’, but no strategies or promises have been made.

The main issues on everyone’s agenda was changing the curriculum in order to fit the student’s needs and training teachers in order to understand technology better and adapt easier to the student’s needs. My question here was: have anyone asked the students what their needs are?

Another question that was raised was: ‘Who should be in the driver’s seat? The Industry or the Education System?’ The answer I’ve heard in this forum was: The Education System. Now let’s think about it for a moment, in today’s world technology evolved; the society evolved; but education didn’t.

Ricardo Semler was one of the guest speakers in this event and he managed to prove this point by asking a simple question: Why do children have 3 months of summer holiday? Because it’s too warm, because they need to rest or is it because ages ago, when this education system came in place, students had to help their parents during the summer holiday with the field work? We all know that this is not the case anymore and after two weeks of holiday children need to be entertained.

Ricardo also came up with a really innovative education system that is having really good results in three schools from Brazil. This system is based on a matrix of knowledge which the students are free to explore and they are the only ones that decide which subjects they want to dig into and which they want to learn on a basic level. This system is based on negotiating with the student on a base of two months projects that they could engage in. The whole idea of the system is to involve the student in his education planning. This approach will give the child more confidence and motivation and will allow him to be more innovative. The usual lecturers will become mentors and the classes will be taught by passionate professionals which will be employed only on the duration of the project.

All in all, the event was a really good experience which allowed me to better understand the way decisions are being taken at a really high level and the direction that the education system will be taking the next few years.