Project participants from The Work Foundation (Big Innovation Centre) travelled up to Lancaster University earlier this month for an intensive workshop aimed at developing a taxonomy for design innovation policies. The purpose of the taxonomy is to contextualise and inform the development of a Design Innovation Scoreboard, which in turn will inform the development of the DeEP Design Innovation Policy Evaluation Tool.
Our aim was to develop a taxonomy for design innovation policies that would build on the framework resulting from the Consortium Project Meeting at Eskilstuna in October – and that would be distinct from extant ‘innovation’ policy taxonomies. We also wanted be able to validate our taxonomy using data we had collected for the Design Innovation Policy Landscape, comprising information on policies, initiatives and organisations from EU 27 member states and beyond.
The taxonomy framework is based on the stated aim of key Europe 2020 initiative ‘Innovation Union’ to increase the design capability of enterprises – and depicts the interactions between policy, initiative and enterprise through the design innovation ecosystem, whilst also reflecting supply and demand-side flows.
We also included the notions of specificity – how specific is the use, recognition and/or promotion of design in increasing the design capability of the enterprise; and route – the path taken in order to increase an enterprise’s design capability. Other factors identified for subsequent development into the taxonomy were those of absorption and diffusion.
The workshop resulted in a valuable body of work and a significant contribution to the development of macro and micro indicators and the Design Innovation Scoreboard. Work on the taxonomy will continue until the 3rd Consortium Meeting in Lancaster in February 2013.
Dr Martyn Evans
John Chisholm