2021 Taiwan Design Talent Report (Executive Summary)

2021 Taiwan Design Talent Report Executive

Summary

Report

CONTENTS

2 Introduction 4 Research Objectives and Methods 5 Status of Domestic Design Talent Development 8 Key Findings 10 Recommendations

2021 Taiwan Design Talent Report

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A

INTRODUCTION After its elevation of status in 2020, Taiwan Design Research Institute (hereinafter referred to as the TDRI) began to develop research in design policy.

And in that same year, experts from industry, government, academia, and research were invited to organize a series of policy workshops, in which they ran through a checklist of the status of Taiwan design development that resulted in the publication of a “Taiwan’s Design Blueprint” This publication addressed eight aspects on Taiwan’s design and development ecosystem, including:

Design Policy Design Funding Design Support Designers Design Users Design Education Design Research Design Promotion As the goal was to enhance the development of domestic design, having a firm grasp on the development pulse of the domestic design industry was essential during design industry tracking. Hence, systematic data tracking and inspections were carried out in order to track domestic design development, which led to the “Design in Taiwan Report 2020” being published. This year (2021), based on the “Taiwan’s Design Blueprint” our research team focused on the development of domestic “design talent” and conducted a design talent questionnaire and interviews with experts.

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In pace with the promotion of design internationally in

pace with industry trends. The Korean Institute of

recent years, design has branched out and embraces

Design Promotion (hereinafter referred to as KIDP)

a lot more different industries and public sectors, and

has organized a network of designers at home and

is now regarded as the key force driving innovation. In

abroad, which in addition to serving as a channel

1997, Denmark became the first country in the world

to globally market Korean design, it also acts as an

to involve design in social development and bolster

important gateway to cultivate international design

industrial competitiveness. To date, many EU Member

talent. Singapore in its “2025 Design Masterplan” 1

States, the United States, Singapore, and South Korea

proposed that design will become one of its national

have also followed suit in formulating design related

skillsets. The specific strategies they propose

policies to drive their respective nation’s industrial

to accomplish this include nurturing citizens’

transformation and overall economic development.

appreciation and cultivation of design starting from

In recent years, international design policies have

preschool education, developing higher design

gradually focused on three aspects:

education orientated towards cross-disciplinary learning, and encouraging designers to persist with

(1) using design to drive innovation and enhance

in-service continuing studies. In Europe, due to the

industrial competitiveness

attention paid to social and environmental issues,

(2) adopting design to improve public services quality

such as climate change, aging societies, and the post-

and public sector efficiency

pandemic era, the British Design Council believes

(3) implementing more systematic planning of limited

that designers can play a key role when mankind is

resources to achieve the goal of sustainable social

put to the test facing such social and environmental

development.

issues, with such tribulations also bringing greater imaginative vision and expectations for the

Thus in this promotional tidal wave, design talents

professional competency of the new generation of

are gradually being held in high regard and playing

design talents.

key roles.

“2021 Taiwan Design Talent Report” is the first As an overview of what other countries are discussing

large-scale and systematic investigation and study

with regard to design talents, in the Asia region,

on design talent in Taiwan. Our hope is that this

the Japanese government is encouraging more

research and publication will invite more experts

businesses to recognize the value of design. And in

from industry, government, academia, research

addition to focusing on bolstering the design thinking

circles, and interested public to follow together with

of business talents and advocating high level design

increased interest the current situation and future

positions, they are also beginning to pay attention to

development of Taiwan’s design talent, ultimately

the possible benefits of emerging design fields, such

creating a more flexible and friendly environment for

as service design, to business development. The

the design industry and design talent.

development of design talent in Korea is also keeping

1 Design Singapore Council (2016). Design 2025. Retrieved from https://www.designsingapore.org/resources/design-2025.html

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B

RESEARCH OBJECTIVES AND METHODS

Research objectives The primary objectives of this design talent research is to understand the status of domestic design talent development and furthermore draft proposals for the development of future design talent through insight gleaned from international case analysis, questionnaire, and expert interviews.

Research procedure and methods This study covered three main work stages: (1) Literature review through analysis of relevant research and reports on design policies from around the world, explore discussions and focal points on the issue of design talent in various countries to understand the measures or directions they are taking in promoting the development of design talent, and process this information to use as reference or for comparison. In addition, collect and analyze the official statistics from the Ministry of Education or the Ministry of Labor on college enrolment and employment of design talent to serve as the basis for research and analysis of talent development in Taiwan's design industry.

(2) Questionnaire two groups of meetings with seven experts were arranged to discuss the structural format and content of the questionnaire and provide corrective suggestions.

The questionnaire was conducted with domestic designers as the principal respondents, and explored the five major contexts of “job status,” “skills and career development,” “learning and international exchange experience,” “industry-university integration,” and “job satisfaction” as part of this “2021 Taiwan Design Talent Report.”

(3) Expert interviews to further deepen our understanding of the current situation and future trend in the development of domestic design talent, individual or focus group interviews were conducted with a total of 17 industrial and academic experts from different professional design fields.

Subjects of the Questionnaire The subjects of the questionnaire were domestic design-related practitioners, including those involved in the professional design fields of industrial design, visual communication design/commercial design, design research, multimedia design, business strategy/ management, space and architectural design, and fashion design. The design practitioners were sought through projects accumulated in the industrial database of the TDRI, cooperation with industry associations, and promotion on social platforms, and invited to fill in the questionnaire.

Explanation of received questionnaires The questionnaire period was from June 17 to July 9, 2021, and of the 1,292 filled questionnaires received, 1,246 were valid. Most of the respondents were female designers, totaling 757 (60.8%), with male designers totaling 460 (36.9%); the remaining respondents are not disclosed. The age distribution of respondents were mainly in the “25 to 29 years old” range, accounting for 33.8%, followed by “under 25 years old” (26%) and “30 to 34 years old" (17.3%).

Limitations of the study Subject to limits of acquisition of designers’ contact, as well as scale of research settings and willingness of designes’ participation in the survey, the relevant data does not represent the entire design development of Taiwan, and is only for reference.

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C

STATUS OF DOMESTIC DESIGN TALENT DEVELOPMENT

In 2020, the number of domestic design related jobs increased by 6% compared with 2019, however, the number of students in Taiwan’s design related departments is decreasing year by year. Nevertheless, about 16,000 design related graduates enter the workplace every year in Taiwan. This variance shows that the supply of and demand for design talents is a topic worthy of in-depth attention.

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The number of students in design related departments is decreasing year by year Overall, the number of students in domestic colleges and universities has shown a negative growth since the 2013 academic year, and the rate of decline is slightly increasing year by year. Only in the 2020 academic year did it pick up slightly. It is further observed that the number of students in design related departments has shown a negative growth since the 2016 academic year—dropping year by year from 83,934 students to 73,754 in the academic year 2020 (Table 1). As a general observation, the decline in birthrate and other factors has affected this drop since 2016, contributing to the slight yearly decrease in the number of students entering Taiwan’s colleges and universities. However, the decrease in the number of students enrolled in design related departments has consistently been greater than the overall decrease in total student enrollment in colleges and universities.

This phenomenon led to a decrease of 5.7% in the number of graduates of design departments in Taiwan’s colleges and universities in the 2019 academic year (16,997, Figure 1) compared with the previous academic year. Such a reality is bound to have a significant impact on the future supply of domestic design talent. And even if there is no significant growth on the demand side, the yearly trend of about 16,000 up-and-coming design graduates is still a topic worthy of attention.

Year

No. of graduates

17,464

2016

18,023

2017 2018

16,997

2019

16,808

Figure 1 Number of graduates from design departments of colleges and universities in recent years

Table 1 Number of students enrolled in colleges and design departments in recent years Academic year

Unit: student, %

Total No. of university and college students

Growth rate

Total No. of Design Dept. students

Growth rate

2011

1,352,084

0.6

72,210

9.1

2012

1,355,290

0.2

76,859

6.4

2013

1,345,973

-0.7

80,453

4.7

2014

1,339,849

-0.5

83,465

3.7

2015

1,332,445

-0.6

85,166

2.0

2016

1,309,441

-1.7

83,934

-1.4

2017

1,273,894

-2.7

81,422

-3.0

2018

1,244,822

-2.3

78,929

-3.1

2019

1,213,172

-2.5

75,765

-4.0

2020

1,203,460

-0.8

73,754

-2.7

Source: Statistics Department of the Ministry of Education Note: The number of students enrolled in the design departments include those enrolled under “visual communication design,” “general design,” “product design,” “space design,” “fashion design and management,” “architecture,” and “landscape design”.

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Dramatic decline in number of students majoring in product design The number of students in product design has shown a clear downward trend in recent years. The rise and fall in the number of students in each design department based on statistical data from the Ministry of Education can be inspected in Table 2, wherein it can be seen that “Visual Communication Design” had the largest number of students enrolled, followed by “General Design” and “Product Design.” The overall number of students in each design department has shown a negative growth since the 2016 academic year. Among them, the students of “Product Design” decreased most strikingly from the 2016 to 2020 academic years, with

a compound annual growth rate of - 8.9%. However, the number of students enrolled in “Fashion Design and “Management” showed a positive growth in the 2016 academic year, though this growth rate did not continue in the following years, but still maintained the highest annual growth rate in the number of enrolled students since the 2016 academic year. It is conjectured that this growth rate has been maintained due to the fact that in recent years many Taiwan fashion designers have gradually come to the fore on the international stage, as well as the government’s continued support for the design industry. In addition, Table 2 shows that the number of students enrolled in “General Design,” “Architecture,” and “Landscape Design” occasionally increased between the 2016 and 2020 academic years.

Table 2 Number of students in each design department

Unit: student, %

Academic year 2016

Academic year 2017

Academic year 2018

Academic year 2019

Academic year 2020

Compound annual growth rate

Visual communication design department

27,462

27,038

26,965

26,263

25,534

-1.8

General design department

16,118

15,653

14,939

14,456

14,733

-2.2

Product design department

16,355

15,645

13,510

12,530

11,288

-8.9

Architecture department

9,552

9,153

9,176

8,907

8,812

-2.0

Space design department

7,657

7,395

6,915

6,542

6,480

-4.1

Fashion design and management department

3,889

3,855

4,921

4,774

4,590

4.2

Landscape design

2,901

2,683

2,503

2,293

2,317

-5.5

83,934

81,422

78,929

75,765

73,754

-3.2

Department

Total Source: Statistics Department of the Ministry of Education

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Market supply and demand for design talent According to the “Job Category Salary Survey” from the Ministry of Labor (Table 3) regarding the market demand for design talent, it is observed that in 2020 there were 48,596 employees in domestic design positions– about 6% higher than in 2019, signifying a continued increase in the market demand for design talent. Among the design positions, about 41.2% were employed in industry related positions, and about 58.8% were in the service industry. However, with the emergence of new design disciplines, such as user experience design and service design, an increasing number of designers have set up personal studios or become freelancers.

The reach of this population of design talent in these emerging design professions and work types are also forming the fountainhead for design innovation energy in Taiwan. It deserves continuous follow-up attention.

58.8%

41.2%

Service industry

Industry related positions

Table 3 No. Of employees in design positions

Unit: student, %

Industry Department

Graphic and multimedia designers Product and costume designers (including industrial design)

Interior designers Architectural engineers (including architects)

Landscape designers Total

Service industry

Total

Number

%

Number

%

Number

%

648

3.2

18,982

66.4

19,630

40.4

12,019

60.0

4,951

17.3

16,970

35.0

4,656

23.2

3,116

11.0

7,772

16.0

2,532

12.6

1,526

5.3

4,058

8.3

166

1.0

-

-

166

0.3

20,021

100

28,575

100

48,596

100

Source: Ministry of Labor “Job Category Salary Survey”.

Note: The survey covered 217,200 graphic and multimedia designers, 217,300 product and fashion designers (including industrial design), 217,100 interior designers, 216,101 architectural engineers (including architects), and 216,102 landscape designers.

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D

02

“Practical experience” and “industrial knowledge” are weak links in design education This study explored the link between industry and academia, in which nearly 60% (59.1%) of designers said they had insufficient relevant practical experience during their college education. In addition, 65.3% of the designers indicated that they received and learned insufficient “industry domain knowledge” during their college education. As a consequence, it is difficult for new design graduates to immediately adjust to the work requirements once they enter the workplace.

KEY FINDINGS This study primarily investigated the status of domestic design talent using a questionnaire.

The key findings are summarized as follows:

03

Self-directed learning has become the main learning approach for design specialty

01

Domestic design talent are mainly employed as in-house designers in businesses The findings of this study have revealed that most domestic design talent were employed as “in-house designers in general companies or businesses,” accounting for 46.2%. Next in number were employed by “design companies” (26.0%), followed by “freelancers”– about 20% (20.8%).

26.0%

04

Design companies

Drawing skills are the main hard skillbehind design, while aesthetic perception/aesthetic standards are the mostly-valued soft skill Results from the received questionnaires have shown that the most common professional skill (hard power) used by designers in their work was use of “computer aided drawing-2D,” accounting for 64.7%. Next in importance was “sketching” and “stipulating design standards and specifications.” As for design’s soft power, aesthetic perception/aesthetic standards were most important, accounting for 76.8%, with “problem solving skills” and “communication and expression skills” being next in importance.

Employment

3.1% Others

20.8%

Freelancers

Based on what has been revealed in the questionnaires received for this study, the self-development of designers and accumulation of professional skills was mainly dependent on “self-directed learning.” Next in importance was “workplace learning,” including those mentioned in the expert interviews carried out for this study, in which project team cooperation and mentoring guidance were referred to as important ways for designers to learn in the workplace. In terms of learning channels, “online information” and “online courses” have become the main channels for designers to accumulate professional knowledge.

3.9%

Public sectors

46.2%

In-house designers in businesses

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05

“Cross-discipline communication and integration skills” are the key future design competencies This study also explored future professional design competencies (hard power), regarding which designers were of the opinion that such hard power will place greater importance on “emerging technology integration,” “business model innovation,” and “trend prediction.” Furthermore, “cross-discipline integration skills,” “international perspective and experience,” and “communication and interpersonal skills” were seen as what will constitute the key soft power for future industrial development.

Hard power

41.9%

Emerging technology integration Business model innovation Trend prediction

Soft power

Communication and interpersonal skills

This study has also brought to light that “salary” was the main consideration for designers when applying for a post. However, from the study results, it can be inferred that importance is gradually being attached to non-economic factors with respect to job promotion prospects. For example, the received filled questionnaires revealed the following findings with respect to considerations when applying for a post: “freedom of creativity” (51.8%), “personal career prospects” (50.6%), “work-life balance” (42.1%), “value put on design by a business’” (37.4%), “challenge of work content” (35.1%), “leader management style” (31.9%), and “team cooperation” (30.8%).

Businesses’ main recruitment criteria– “portfolio” and “academia-industry experience”

37.2%

International perspective and experience

Job promotion prospects has also become a key job search consideration

08

38.5%

Cross-discipline integration skills

07

60.5% 56.2% 50.1%

06

Overall job satisfaction was on the high side of average–but room for improvement This study took “salary and fringe benefits,” “working hours,” “freedom of creativity,” “personal career development,” and “value put on design by a business’” as five aspects of job satisfaction. 48% of designers were satisfied (including satisfied and very satisfied) with their current situation regarding overall design working environment and conditions of employment, while 36.6% said that their situation was average.

These results show that there is still room for improvement in the design working environment and conditions of employment.

Results gleaned from the questionnaires have also revealed that up to 90.6% of design supervisors attach most importance to an applicant’s portfolio content when recruiting. Next in importance was “academiaIndustry collaboration/internship experience” (60.3%), whereas “college/department graduated from” (23.1%) and “relevant certificates” (10.3%) were secondary criteria.

09

Social networking has become a key development criterion for freelancers 20.8% of the respondents to this study’s questionnaire were freelance workers. The projects they received mainly involved “visual communication design/ commercial design,” accounting for 82.9%, followed by “industrial design” (38.8%), “multimedia design” (23.6%), and “interior and architectural design” (22.1%). In addition, the source of projects for freelancers mainly came from “introduction by others,” accounting for 81%, followed by “peer introduction” (43.8%). These results have shown that freelancers in the design industry depend to a great extent on the accumulation of experience to build up a good reputation and establish contacts.

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E RECOMMENDATIONS Based on the “Job Category Salary Survey” from Taiwan’s Ministry of Labor, in 2020, the number of employees in domestic design positions grew by about 6% compared with 2019, from which it’s surmised that the demand for design talent in the domestic market is growing. Moreover, according to official statistics released by Singapore, the market demand for design talent is also showing positive growth for the future, with the main talent demand coming from non-design industries. Furthermore, Japan has also indicated that more design talent are needed for future industrial development and competitiveness. In addition, with the emergence of new design disciplines, such as service design and user experience design, and the development of big data, artificial intelligence, and machine

automation, designers are facing a more diverse and complex industrial environment. Hence, the focal point of this study was to explore the expected future transformation and development of the professional competency needs of design talent.

This “2021 Taiwan Design Talent Report” is a result of an exploration into the status of domestic design talent development. And a better understanding of the development trends and prospects of design talent has been gained through research and analysis of international design related policies and interviews with experts in the field of design in industry and academia.

In light of the research findings of this study, the following conclusions and proposals are put forward:

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01

Recommended practices

Cultivate a design career pathways

The definition of design has evolved with the development of society and industry, and has already seen a change in signification. For example, in the face of a rapidly changing industrial and market environment, along with the accelerated development of science and technology, with the blossoming of big data, artificial intelligence, automation, and robotics in the industrial 4.0 era, design has become a common link across diversified industrial fields and social development, as well as an indispensable force driving innovation and creating value. Based on the expert interviews carried out for this study, the future development of design will be more closely integrated with fields such as “commerce,” “digitization,” “AI,” and “sustainable development,” including issues related thereto. Cross-discipline integration of design will become the future trend for industrial and social development. Under this development trend it will become possible to create more opportunities for designers in this new emerging job market.

2021 Taiwan Design Talent Report

● Establish a Taiwan Design Career Development Framework: In the future, Taiwan’s design-related industries, government, and academic research circles can refer to Singapore’s design policies to build a design competency framework (Career Pathways), and regularly update emerging design positions on a rolling basis, thereby providing a reference for domestic design talent to identify potential career development paths. ● Clearly define the expertise and content of design positions: clarify the definition and functions of design related positions. For example, Japan explicitly defines emerging design jobs, which serves as a guide for the cultivation of design talent, and assists individuals to develop professional design competency or can be used as a reference for businesses to incorporate professional design talent. ● Strengthen in-service training of design talents: to respond accordingly to digital, smart, and other industrial trends and market demands. The government can provide relevant resources, such as design training courses or grant subsidies for related talent training.

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02

Recommended practices

Encourage benchmark collaboration among the industry, academia and research Regarding design education, promoting cross-disciplinary courses has become an important channel for many countries, including Taiwan, to propagate design and cultivate design talent. For example, in Britain, in order to reverse the plight of the sharp decline of talent in design education, the British Design Council recommends that higher education must try to break the barriers and boundaries between disciplines and professions, and focus on interdisciplinary learning and cooperation, such as incorporating design into STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) curriculum development and promotion. In recent years, there have been more international initiatives for creating a STEAMD curriculum, demonstrating that design is crossing educational disciplines and gradually being valued. In addition, both Japan and Singapore are advocating proceeding with cross-curricular and interdisciplinary learning in higher education. For example, design thinking courses are being offered in business colleges, while in contrast courses related to business management and science and technology are being offered in art colleges. In order to cultivate interdisciplinary design talent, this study recommends future closer cooperation be encouraged between industry, academia, and research institutes, to create benchmarking cases and the modularity of relevant knowledge and design methods, which can not only be used as a way to cultivate future design talent, but also further facilitate the development of integrated design in Taiwan.

2021 Taiwan Design Talent Report

● Continue nurturing cross-disciplinary design talent: in future college design education or industry practice, we should incorporate cross-disciplinary learning and cooperative thinking into the mechanism of talent cultivation, and develop related courses. ● Provide designers with opportunities to touch new types of projects, learning to receive projects: to try to guide or coordinate design companies or designers to free themselves from the traditional mode of receiving projects, and attempt to touch projects in emerging industries or innovative fields, including important industries and issues, such as public services, cyclic design, and smart machinery, to accumulate experience with practical projects. ● Develop digital design tools and teaching materials: design has become one of the indispensable professions for cross-disciplinary talents, thus, industry, government, and academic circles should become involved in the development of design related tools and teaching materials. For example, the British Design Council released a recommendation report on incorporating design methods for different industrial trends, such as cyclic design, which collected and organized design methods and toolkits to be used as a practical for businesses and designers to refer to and apply. ● Encourage industry and academia research teams to create benchmarking cases or integrated modular design methods, and on the policy side, create a platform to accommodate industry and research collaboration, to encourage the flow of design innovation and cultivate exceptional talents.

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03

Recommended practices

Promote the strategic role of design and the cultivation of design leadership

● At present, priority in design education is generally given to professional skills training.

If the design profession is expected to expand, talent cultivation should extend to design management, design strategy, method development, and technology application. ● Make way for positions arising from innovative projects, such as design directors, managers, and strategy experts. The design positions offered to future high-level design talent should be clearly defined and described, to encourage businesses (or public departments) to employ design talent and encourage the employment of high-level design managers. ● Use government awards and subsidies, to support businesses to recruit design talent: The government can refer to South Korea’s subsidy measures for businesses to employ design talent in order to urge Taiwan businesses or public departments to increase the number of high-level design talent positions or encourage the employment of high-level design talent.

Or, at a future date, amend Taiwan’s cultural and creative law to formulate tax credit measures for businesses that employ high-level design talent, to spur businesses to increase the number of high-level design positions and support the hiring of design talent.

Design talent are the strategic assets of a company, especially when design thinking and design strategy become important avenues to implement the company’s management methods and spur innovation. This trend can be seen from the business models of international management consultant companies, such as McKinsey, SAP, and IBM, which use design methods to help businesses identify pain spots, formulate strategies, and explore business models. It's increasingly apparent that design has changed from product appearance design in the past to an important role in formulating a company’s core strategy. Under the premise of steering an organization to climb the design hierarchy, it is essential to improve the management and leadership skills of designers, as well as their strategic and commercial sensibility. Accordingly, design should be extended from

being a one-off service to addressing decision-making aspects, such as organizational operations and branding strategies, only then can design inject innovative energy into the organization and create higher value, and this will depend on high-level design talent or leaders exerting their influence in the organization. At present, a shortage has appeared in Taiwan’s middle and highlevel design talent, however, in the future, the demand for such a talent group may increase. This study is of the opinion that domestic industry and academia should actively build a nurturing vehicle for middle and highlevel design talent. As for design education, colleges should rethink and adjust the proportion and curriculum content in bachelor, master’s, and doctoral degrees, and proceed with different hierarchical planning for the cultivation of design talent.

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04

Track and monitor the development of atypical design talent In the face of a decreasing number of design students each year, although it may cause a certain impact on the supply of design talent, however, with the rise of new design fields, the avenues and channels for cultivating design talent are becoming increasingly diverse. These new design fields have already broken through the realms of traditional design departments, such as the introduction of cross-disciplinary courses. which have created additional possibilities for the cultivation and supply of design talent in the future. In addition, the

research carried out through expert interviews in this study shows that in recent years an increasing number of design talent have become involved in non-design fields, as well as in non-design entrepreneurship and development projects, but used design methods or thinking in their work. This category of design talent should be continuously and systematically tracked in the future, including having a better understanding of the department distribution and learning methods of the colleges they graduated from.

Recommended practices ● In pace with the transformation of design value, “Designers” are no longer merely design major graduates. For example, graduates from different fields, such as AIOT (Artificial Intelligence of Things), medical engineering, service science, and management have become key special talents.

Therefore, it is worth paying attention to the development and trends of such talents. ● Focus on innovative talents and people with different professional knowledge, create an open platform, promote information exchange, and expand domestic and international networks.

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05

Recommended practices ● Ingrain design thinking from childhood: to cultivate national design thinking and problem-solving ability, it is recommended that courses and activities such as design thinking be incorporated into the curriculum of elementary schools, junior high schools, or senior high schools. As an example, after Singapore released its “2025 Design Blueprint”, its recommendations have already been successively implemented into their preschool to Junior High School curriculums, offering a series of comprehensive design courses that are cultivating creativity and a sense of design from an early age.

Advance the universalization of design learning

● Because applying design to public services is becoming increasingly critical, we should continue to expedite training in design thinking for public servants, provide resources for in-service continuing design studies, and open up design opportunities in the public domain.

In addition to traditional college design education, self-directed learning and networking have also become avenues for design skill training and knowledge learning, meaning that design learning opportunities have become more diverse and convenient. With such turning points in mind, this study recommends that in the future Taiwan consult proposals made by Britain, Japan and Singapore to advance the universalization of design learning, including fields where design has already put down its roots, as well as incorporating design into lifelong learning areas. Taking Singapore as an example. its “2025 Design Blueprint” proposed the requirement to offer a series of comprehensive design courses for students from preschool to middle school, to cultivate national design thinking and problem-solving ability

from an early age. In comparison, Taiwan’s Ministry of Education published its outline for the twelve year national basic education curriculum in 2018, in which “Design” became a subject domain for teaching in the fields of art and technology, in particular, an elective course of “basic design” was scheduled for inclusion in the art field of “normal senior high schools.” In the future, design related courses or activities should be introduced into elementary and junior high schools.

From the perspective of industrial development or actual practice, the anticipation is that the internal operations of businesses phase in design to their different departments and teams, to increase design awareness and improve the application of design tools and methods.

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2021 Taiwan Design Talent Report— exploring the status and future development of Taiwan design talent Issuer: Chuan-Neng Lin Chief Editor: Chi-Yi Chang Editorial committee: Oliver Lin, Nina Ay Executive editors: Chia-Huei Sher, Yu-Chen Chen, Jiun-Yi Wu Information and visual design: Onion Design Illustration: Haoyun Cheng Publisher: Taiwan Design Research Institute Address: No. 133, Guangfu South Road, Xinyi District, Taipei Website: https://www.tdri.org.tw Tel: (02) 2745-8199 Fax: (02) 3322-9028 Publication date: December 2021 Edition: First Edition ISBN: 978-986-98998-4-0

Taiwan Design Research Institute reserves all rights. For those wanting to use the content of this publication in part or in whole, they are required to seek the consent or written authorization of Taiwan Design Research Institute.