The First Design4Innovation Knowledge Exchange Workshop, 8th March 2017, Bruges

In 2017, eight European regions set out to share their knowledge and experiences and to learn from each other on what works in improving their regional innovation capacity through design.

During three years of the learning phase, we organised seven knowledge exchange workshops, multiple study visits and engaged over 1.000 people in regional stakeholder group meetings to make sure our actions are relevant to people to whom they should serve and that they are adopted to our local contexts. We spread our lessons learnt to over 2.000 more people in 57 Dissemination events, including a high-level 'International Design Policy Roundtable' and ‘Innovation by design’ exhibition during 2018 Valletta European Capital of Culture celebrations.

As a result, we present eight Action Plans with a total of 27 actions addressing 12 different policy documents:

  1. Wales
  2. Flanders
  3. Greece
  4. Latvia
  5. Malta
  6. Silesia
  7. Galicia
  8. Catalonia

Some of the actions are already taking shape benefiting our regional SMEs, communities and broader innovation ecosystem. In coming months, we will be closely monitoring the implementation of the actions and evaluating their impact.

Study visit at Belloch Knowledge Park during the seventh Knowledge Exchange Workshop, 4th October 2019, Barcelona