Feature
—
17 November 2015
Introducing the Design Policy Beacon
What is the Design Policy Beacon?
As part of Design for Europe, the
Design
Politecnico
di Milano has
launched
an initiative called Design
Policy Beacon, an
evidence-based
online resource building on
the
principles of Politecnico’s
design policy actions. It
uses
data visualisation to
pinpoint
the network of initiatives
and
organisations in support of
design across Europe.
Our aim with the Design
Policy Beacon is to
support the growing
community of
policymakers who are working
to
make design a key part of
national and regional
policies
for innovation and growth.
By
visualising the network of
initiatives and
organisations in
this field we want to
document
the most pressing issues for
design and policy.
At its simplest we want
to help
policymakers share
stories and
insights –connecting and
building an
international
network of colleagues
working to
address similar
challenges.
Answering questions
like: What
type of investments have
been
made to support design?
What has
been achieved? Who is
investing
in this area?
The Design Policy Beacon was released on the Design Policy Lab's official website since May 2016.
What do we want to find out?
Through surveys, interviews, and desk research we’re bringing together the perspectives of a wide range of design policy experts and experiences. The key areas we’re focussing on are:
- What are the needs of policymakers who want to create policy actions to support design?
- How can design help in the policymaking process to make its needs heard?
- What are the barriers to including design in innovation and growth policy?
What is the Design Policy Beacon offering?
We are creating a
resource that
provides an up-to-date
map of
design policy actions
across
Europe – alongside
first-hand
stories of their
development and
impact. By visualising
these
stories we hope to help
uncover
trends at a European
level, as
well as providing
practical
insights about
initiatives that
have responded to
specific
regional challenges.
To make sense of the
rich corpus
of quantitative data and
qualitative information
collected, we have made
them
available through a
‘Landscape’
and have organised them
into
three different formats:
- Expert interview - an opinion piece that focuses on the expert’s perspective about what is the design policy landscape in his/her context.
- Country Profile - a generic national overview focusing on the main policy actions in support of design and listing the most important organisations.
- Country Analysis - an in-depth analysis of the design policy ecosystem in a country, developed according to The Design Policy Lab's framework.
All policy actions collected are also displayed and made accessible into the "Catalogue" section, where they can be sorted and filtered using selected parameters.
Who is the Design Policy Beacon for?
We want to make the resource as accessible as possible, but our key target audiences are:
- Policymakers and policy implementers
- Governmental institutions
- Design policy beneficiaries
- Design professionals and design advocates
- Academics
The inspiration
We were inspired to start this project by our work with policymakers and some of the great data visualisation that has taken place in the policy and innovation space over the last couple of years, in particular:
- The Innovation Policy Platform (OECD, World Bank Group)
- The Better Life Index (OECD)
- The Learning Curve (The Economist Intelligent Unit)
- No Ceilings Project (Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation)
- World Policy Center (World Policy Center, UCLA)
- European Digital City Index 2015 (Nesta)
Open Call to Engagement
The Design Policy Beacon is an ongoing project and we are always looking to collaborate with experts and organisations that can help us expand our dataset and get a more accurate picture of the European landscape of design policy actions.
That's why we have launched an open Call to Engagement for the design community at large, both inside and outside Europe (although Europe has been our main focus). If you are interested in supporting our project or providing input based on your experience and expertise, please get in touch with us.
We welcome your input!