Service Design Policy Trends 2015 – 2020 Design-driven innovation at European, national and regional levels
Since 2010, when design was included in European innovation policy for the first time (Innovation Union), the design policy landscape in Europe has been transformed. Design is increasingly being recognised by EU institutions and national governments across Europe as a factor for innovation in small to medium-sized Anna Whicher is head of design policy at PDR at Cardiff Metropolitan University. She leads the SEE network (www. seeplatform.eu) and is a board member of the Bureau of European Design Associations (www.beda.org).
Piotr Swiatek is a research assistant at PDR. He is particularly interested in design capabilities for policy-making and was involved in writing the Polish Design Manifesto.
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enterprises, the public sector and society. Not only is there an action plan for Design-driven Innovation at the Euro pean level, but a number of European Member States (EUMS), including Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France and Latvia, have also developed design action plans. In addition, fifteen of the twenty-eight EUMS have design explicitly included in national innovation policy. Furthermore, regions like Flanders (Belgium), South Bohemia (Czech Republic), Central Finland, Central Macedonia (Greece) and Wales (UK), among others, have integrated design into their innovation policies, while in Lahti (Finland), St Etienne (France), Dublin (Ireland), Katowice (Poland) and Kent, Monmouth and Shropshire (UK), design managers are responsible for innovating public services. Design is an approach to problem-solving that
can be used across the private and public sectors to drive innovation in products, services, society and even policy-making by putting people first. The SEE Platform has contributed to some of these changes. SEE (Sharing Experience in Europe) is a network of eleven European partners engaging with government to build capacity for design-driven innovation. SEE has been using service design methods to develop design-driven innovation policies. Between 2012 and 2015, led by PDR at Cardiff Metropolitan Uni versity and funded by the European Commission, SEE has delivered 102 hands-on workshops engaging over 800 policy-makers in using design methods. Through workshops for policy-makers, new research and advocacy, SEE has influenced seventeen policies and
