Design Ecosystems are a theoretical construct used by academics and policy-makers to identify and examine the actors and initiatives in the design landscape within a country or region. Subsequently, government can intervene in order to stimulate the supply of or demand for design within the ecosystem in the form of a Design Action Plan.
This Policy Booklet is intended to support governments and stakeholders to develop Design Action Plans and to integrate design into innovation policy based on the lessons from countries and regions that have mapped their Design Ecosystems.
The Design4Innovation partners have mapped their Design Ecosystems, identified our systemic strengths and weaknesses and begun to develop actions to enhance the performance of our Design Ecosystems. In this Policy Booklet we share our experiences and lessons from this first stage of our interregional learning. We also reflect on the critical success factors for Design Action Plans in the form of eight lessons learnt. Design is about testing and iterating. We are taking a design approach to developing our regional or national Design Action Plans and the actions in this policy booklet are only the first iteration. We will support each other to develop, implement, monitor and, where possible, evaluate these Design Action Plans.
Download Design4Innovation Policy Booklet 1 from the Library section on our website.
