Design Impact Observatory

Project Information

DesImO

Grant agreement ID: 959271

DOI

10.3030/959271

Project closed

EC signature date 22 September 2020

Start date 1 February 2021

End date 31 January 2022

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Innovation In SMEs

Total cost

€ 50 000,00

EU contribution

€ 50 000,00

Coordinated by

BUSINESS AND CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT CENTRE
Greece

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - DesImO (Design Impact Observatory)

Reporting period: 2021-02-01 to 2022-01-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Design is a process of creative problem solving and is being recognised as a major driver of innovation. When design principles are applied to strategy and innovation, the success rate for innovation dramatically improves. Yet, it is one of the most frequently-overlooked yet crucially important elements of innovation. On top of that, there is a lack of reliable data and evidence on design in various contexts, which is crucial for implementing the strategy, measuring success of respective inputs, enabling actors to demonstrate the value of design and to raise-awareness of design.
The basic DesImO’s concept is to tackle the challenges that national/regional agencies face, providing innovation support services that really apply to and satisfy the needs of the SMEs, especially regarding monitoring the impact that drivers of innovation – such as Design – have on their performance. Business support organisations face a lot of pressure to deliver ongoing schemes even if the evidence of their success is weak. Having a simple and coordinated approach to measure the impact of innovation interventions would allow them to better align their support offer, and ultimately ensure the best results from public funding to businesses. During the last programming period, the European Commission has raised its attention to inclusive procedures, as proven by the setup of its programmes, both during their development and their post evaluation. But what happens when it comes to a more national/regional/local level? SMEs are reported dissatisfied by either the kind of support and/or the quality of it. More enterprise-friendly support schemes have to be designed, starting from the analysis of good practices.
In this respect, the main goal of DesImO project was to create and propose a guideline on how any agency could develop a mechanism to monitor Design – or any other driver of innovation – and its impact on SMEs. For this reason, four organisations with long-standing experience in Design are brought together, to jointly explore best practices and provide guidelines and tools regarding effectively measuring Design and its impact on SMEs. Based on the outputs of a series of interrelated activities, the final deliverable of the project, that is the present Design Options Paper (DOP), was elaborated, leading the way to a monitoring system of Design – or any other driver of innovation – at the service of all interested parties (innovation agencies, policy makers etc.).

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The 4 partner organisations of DesImO project (Business and Cultural Development Centre – KEPA, Danish Design Centre – DDC, Cardiff Metropolitan University – PDR and Estonian Design Centre – EDC) followed a blended methodology of Twinning + and Design Thinking, in order to address the challenge “How might we develop a framework of a proposed methodology for measuring Design and its impact on SMEs?”.

Good practices on how to monitor Design were looked for, at global level, inside and outside the DesImO partner organisations. During the first peer-learning workshop, the participants presented their findings and then reviewed the elements that turn those case studies into “good practices” and could – thus –be useful for the DesImO’s own purpose. As the outcome of this learning exchange process, 5 case studies were finally selected to be further exploited in terms of methodology, indicators and data collection procedure.
In addition to outlining the basic features of the above-mentioned cases, the DesImO’s peer-learning group members proceeded in sorting the learnings to bring forward for developing a new proposed methodological framework for measuring Design and its impact on SMEs.
In order to assess this scheme of quantitative and qualitative surveys, 2 questionnaires were formulated (one for State of Design in SMEs and one for Intervention Impact) according to the related indicators.
Based on the Action Plan developed to test these research tools, all 4 partners ran their own pilot action, addressing SMEs and relevant innovation agencies, so as to get their feedback.
During the second peer-learning workshop, the project partners shared their experience, reviewed the process and reformed the proposed methodology based on the pilot results. The findings are integrated in the present Design Options Paper, which provides a methodological framework for measuring Design and its impact on SMEs, by illustrating the basic process and analyse each phase/step with specific guidelines, good advice and things to consider.
The project’s results and the DOP were presented at the online final event that was held on 11.01.2022 during the Open Doors Dialogue of BEDA. Furthermore, they were also disseminated through the partners’ networks, relevant projects and communication channels.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Design is a methodology used to solve complex problems, and to find desirable solutions for clients by integrating innovation. Design drives the innovation process, and hence sharpens industry competitiveness for Europe. It must be led by a vision that sets out to achieve extraordinary results, and realised by strategies that extract the most valuable assets of innovation, creativity, and design to propel EU SMEs to the next greater height.
Obtaining hard, comparable data and scientific evidence of design effectiveness is still the holy grail of many design researchers. However, the more design infiltrates all areas of social and business life and becomes a horizontal approach applicable to various activities, the more difficult it is to track and measure it as an independent variable. In an enterprise it can be applied to a single product or service development process, used as a function of marketing and branding or it can be part of business DNA or mindset and used strategically in all aspects of running a business. As observed by Jeneanne Rae ‘design is notoriously difficult to define, tough to measure, hard to isolate as a function, and tricky to manage, making it challenging for many non-designers to comprehend’ . Design can have different meanings to different audiences in various sectors and its scope also varies significantly in different languages and cultural contexts therefore getting uniform, comparable figures can be problematic. Fortunately, there is a wealth of good practice approaches and tips on how to address those challenges and get the information you need to learn about the current status of design application, its impact and based on that improve the use of design among SMEs.
Through DesImO implementation, the partners identified good practices of similar previous and on-going initiatives, researched on how they were set up, what data collection methodologies they applied, which were the advantages and limitations of those methods. As a result, a Design Monitoring Framework DOP was created to help other innovation agencies to monitor the level of integrating Design into business and its impact on SMEs. Having recognized the importance to try something before recommending it to others, the DesImO partners ran a tool testing in their territories making use of the monitoring framework and guidelines that were developed. Based on the results of peer learning and tool testing, they elaborated final version of DOP, with the aspiration that it becomes the ultimate guidebook on how to set up such an observatory from scratch.

Final event

1st peer-learning workshop

2nd peer-learning workshop