Written evidence submitted by the Design
Council (TIC 80)
SUMMARY
The Design Council welcomes the opportunity to respond
to the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee inquiry
into Technology Innovation Centres (TICs).
The Design Council is the UK's national strategic
body for design and government advisor on design. Our views are
drawn from a strong evidence base from our design support programmes
for technology start ups and science teams in leading universities
to help commercialise new technology.
Both the Hauser and Dyson reports suggest the creation
of an elite network of technology centres, modelled on the German
Fraunhofer Centres, to help bridge the gap between research and
development.
While the Design Council is supportive of the purpose
of the Government proposal for Technology and Innovation Centres
and strongly believes that such environments have the potential
to promote innovation and entrepreneurship, to model them entirely
on the Fraunhofer Institutes would risk underplaying the role
of design in accelerating research and innovation to market.
Although design's role in the economy is more widely
acknowledged and it is understood that many successful high-tech
businesses like Apple and Dyson are design as well as technology
driven, this link is still not strong enough in the early stages
of commercialisation. There remains a lack of awareness and use
of design by UK scientists to help identify market needs and make
new concepts viable and appealing.[123]
The Temple Review pointed out: "The economic
goal of generating more wealth from new science demands multidisciplinary
teams of designers, engineers and technologists designing around
the needs of customers."[124]
The UK has two globally recognised assets: our design
industry and science base - but they are not in any way sufficiently
joined up. Market and system failures exist - scientists and technology-intensive
start-ups lack an understanding of how design can help to commercialise
their ideas. In addition there are few support mechanisms to correct
this and the design industry does not readily see the opportunities.
The benefits of integrating design in the early stages
of scientific development, is that the focus shifts from the technical
functionality to what end users need and want, which in turn helps
to reduce the risks in bringing new ideas to market, increases
the potential value within the IP and helps attract and secure
investment earlier.
The Design Council therefore recommends that for
proposed new Technology and Innovation Centers to add value they
must build on UK strengths and integrate design support in their
offer.
1. Design is a vital and often missing ingredient
Design is among the UK's strongest creative sectors,
and ranks highly against international competition.[125]
When businesses exploit the skills of UK designers, significant
performance benefits have been demonstrated - for example, manufacturers
who invest in design see significant outcomes as a result, including
improved quality of goods and services, and increased market share.[126]
And companies that spend double the average amount on creative
inputs, including design, are 25% more likely to introduce product
innovations.[127]
Creative sectors such as design are seen as drivers
of innovation and growth throughout the UK economy.[128]
Policymakers and academics have recently moved beyond focussing
on technical and research activities to recognise the importance
of design and creativity to innovation activities.[129]
Most of the UK's universities produce world class
science and technology innovations. Much of this research and
innovation has commercial potential and efforts to exploit this
resource for competitive advantage have improved. But there is
still scope to help technological and scientific experts turn
their ideas into products and commercial opportunities that investors
will back and customers will buy. This is where design can add
significant value.
Designers have a range of specialist skills which
enable them to make a unique and valuable contribution early on
in the technology transfer process. These skills include creative
problem solving, visualisation techniques but above all a focus
on the end-user benefits. This shifts the focus of technology
transfer offices (TTOs) from pushing a new technology based on
its functionality, to understanding how it can be developed in
order for a market to want and buy into the idea. In addition
this approach helps to identify how further value might be unlocked
by exploring the benefits of applying the technology in other
markets not previously explored. Dr George Rice, Manager of Technology
Demonstrator at University of Nottingham Innovation Park shared
with us his experience of using design:
"From all the work we've done the key learning
point has been to take a step back and reconsider the opportunity
in terms of features and benefits to the 'end user'. In the main
we find that what we have is still good, but we're selling it
wrong - and this is often where design inputs can put us back
on the right path."
Our work at the Design Council has demonstrated that
the economic benefits of using design to commercialise technology
are significant.[130]
The Design Council's Innovate for Universities programme
has taken design experts into the six leading university
TTOs[131]
to accelerate new applications for academic research, moving ideas
closer to market.
The TTOs report that the strategic advice and design
projects have helped each technology project in a different way.
Outcomes include:
- license deals secured and over £1,000,000
of fresh investment accessed;
- a reduction in the risk taken by the TTO. 80%
of projects report a reduction in risk;
- increased IP value. 50% of projects say
they have increased the value of their intellectual property by
working with designers; and
- accelerated time to market. 30% of projects report
they have got closer to market quicker by working with designers.
Despite the potential gains that could be realised,
design remains under-exploited by our universities. For David
Secher, Chairman of PraxisUnico this is the result of information
and system failures: "Due to a lack of awareness, little
engagement between the design and research communities and an
inability to fund design related projects, the value of design
for technology transfer is under recognised."
The Design Council believes that this is something
that the Technology Innovation Centres must urgently address.
2. Other models for research centres oriented
toward applications and results
Over the last few years, a number of multidisciplinary
centres emerged across the UK bringing design, business, science
and engineering education closer together. Universities are also
working closely with businesses to ensure that the courses they
offer and the research they produce is meeting the changing needs
of industry, and that students are gaining experience of working
on live multi-disciplinary projects. Examples include:
- Design
London builds on a heritage
of cross-institutional collaboration to provide design-led modules
for MBA students, designers and engineers, with a focus on business
incubation (www.designlondon.net).
- University College
Falmouth operates a multi-disciplinary
research and development laboratory and a creative facilitation
space (www.falmouth.ac.uk).
However, all this activity is still only taking place
in a relatively small number of universities.[132]
With this in mind, we recommend that new Technology and Innovation
Centres should build on and include key multidisciplinary design
centres, such as Design London in its network.
3. Recommendations
The establishment of Technology Innovation Centres
provides a unique opportunity to "hardwire" design into
the technology infrastructure. We are however concerned that it
does not yet feature design strongly enough and would like to
work with BIS to ensure that design input is built into the portfolio
of services offered by the Technology Innovation Centres and we
therefore recommend that:
- 3.1 Given the world-class design talent in
the UK, design should be more readily available and connected
to the Technology Innovation Centres to promote faster commercialisation
of ideas.
- 3.2 The Design Council national network of
design mentors building the innovation capabilities of science
based teams and signposting innovation projects towards appropriate
expertise, has proved successful with TTOs. We recommend that
extending this design support model to the new Technology Innovation
Centres might be more cost effective, as opposed to having embedded
capability within these centres. Design support could expand through
re-distribution of small proportion of the overall budget for
Technology Innovation Centres towards design mentoring at early
stages, including for technology start ups and existing network
of university TTOs.
- 3.3 Existing innovation enablers need to
join up; and BIS has a role to play in bringing the TSB and rest
of BIS-led Innovation Network closer together opening up opportunities
for multi-disciplinary connections;
- 3.4 New centres should also include an emerging
network of multidisciplinary design centres such as Design London.
Design Council
7 December 2010
APPENDIX
4. Definitions of Design
Ingenious Britain's definition
(2010): "Design is not simply aesthetics; it's the rigorous
process that links new technologies to business - creating things
that work properly."
The Cox Review (2005):
"Design is what links
creativity and innovation. It shapes ideas to become practical
and attractive propositions for users or customers. Design may
be described as creativity deployed to a specific end."
Design as a driver of user-centered
generation (2009), the
EC Commission's working document: "Design
for user-centred innovation is the activity of conceiving and
developing a plan for a new or significantly improved product,
service or system that ensures the best interface with user needs,
aspirations and abilities, and that allows for aspects of economic,
social and environmental sustainability to be taken into account."
5. Owlstone Nanotech - Case-study
Owlstone Nanotech was founded
in 2004 by three Cambridge University researchers who had developed
a ground-breaking chemical detection technology that's the size
of a five pence piece and can detect a wide range of chemical
agents even in extremely small quantities. They wanted to develop
their technological innovation and exploit its commercial potential
and they needed to get investors on-side and work out a strategy
for getting to market.
But they faced many of the problems common among
high technology start-ups:
- Explaining its technology - particularly challenging
as it's invisible to the naked eye
- Communicating competitive advantage to a variety
of audiences - from technical partners to investors, customers
and media.
- Attracting investors, partners and high-quality
staff.
- Choosing the best short-term and long-term applications
for the technology and the strategy for market entry.
The Design Council's design mentoring programme Designing
Demand helped Owlstone tackle issues including their brand strategy,
corporate culture, the needs of people using potential products,
product development and plans for market entry. Owlstone worked
with Designing Demand soon after launching in 2004 so the design
input came early enough to ensure that brand, market and product
strategy evolved together.
In May 2006, it launched a digital tool that allowed
would-be customers in different sectors to sample the technology
and assess how it could be incorporated most effectively into
their work. Billy Boyle, Co-Founder and President of Operations,
Owlstone explains: 'For clients it was a low-risk way to evaluate
the technology. Meanwhile for us the advantage was that we'd done
80% of the development up front and it was just a question of
making modifications to suit different applications. So we spread
risk too.'
Four months later, in September 2006, Owlstone attracted
£1.25 million of fresh investment and formed a technology
development work partnership with a leading UK-based company.
The Designing Demand programme has left a legacy
of innovation at Owlstone. Design thinking is used not only to
define product and brand development, but it has also become part
of core strategic thinking. Visualisation activities are now used
as a key part of the decision making process, even by non-designers.
Model building was entirely new to the company but it has proved
to be important in making its advanced technology intelligible
to a wider audience from potential partners to national and trade
press.
Model building was entirely new to the company but
it has proved to be important in making its advanced technology
intelligible to a wider audience from potential partners to national
and trade press.
Boyle says: "When you're speaking to people
from a non-scientific background it's hard to articulate things
like principles of operation. Visualisation has had a dramatic
impact in helping us get the technology across. It's part of everything
we do. Aside from that we have a solid brand that will grow over
time and that makes people sit up and realise we're serious."
Owlstone has developed more than six standalone products
that apply the firm's unique technology to different applications.
"There are so many and varied potential applications for
our technology that we have to stage and manage the way in which
we pursue and resource them. There is massive potential for our
sensor in particular in fields such as medical diagnostics and
cancer detection, and in the long term this could be huge for
the company," says Boyle. "But we are taking a highly
focused and targeted approach to progress. Two years ago we had
no significant revenue - around $200k - but in each of the last
two years we have generated $3.5 million a year."
It has formed an ongoing partnership with SELEX Galileo,
one of Europe's foremost aerospace and defense organisations,
and in January 2010 entered into an exclusive strategic development
agreement with the company, executing a licensing agreement by
which SELEX Galileo will obtain the exclusive right to develop
and distribute Owlstone's FAIMS chemical detection technology
products within the military marketplace.
In March 2010 it was awarded an $80k contract from
an agency of the UK Ministry of Defence for a three-month investigation
into the application of its core technology in ultra-trace vapour
detection. Pending success of this proof-of-principle stage there
is an opportunity for contract extension to a longer second phase
in which field deployment trials would be undertaken.
"If we hadn't
taken part in Designing Demand we would have missed a big opportunity.
It exposed us to new ideas we could use straight away and which
gave us shape and direction. Without it, we would have been a
lot slower in getting to where we have", says Boyle.
More info: http://www.owlstonenanotech.com
About Designing Demand and technology start-up case-studies:
http://www.designingdemand.org.uk/case_studies/innovate_case_studies
About Innovate for Universities and case studies
http://www.designcouncil.org.uk/our-work/Support/Innovate-for-Universities
About the Design Council:
http://www.designcouncil.org.uk/about-us/
123 The Race to the Top, A Review of Government's Science
and Innovation Policies, Lord Sainsbury (2007). Back
124
Temple Review, BIS (2010). Back
125
Moultrie, J. & Livesey, F. (2009) "International Design
Scoreboard: initial indicators of international design capabilities"
Cambridge: University of Cambridge. Back
126
HM Treasury (2005) 'Cox Review of Creativity in Business: building
on the UK's strengths.' London: HM Treasury -citing results for
UK manufacturers from the Third Community Innovation Survey. Back
127
Bakhshi, H., McVittie, E. and Simmie, J. (2008) 'Creating Innovation:
Do the creative industries support innovation in the wider economy?'
London: NESTA. Back
128
Sunley, P. et al (2008) "Innovation in the Creative Production
System: the case for design". Journal of Economic Geography
8. Oxford: Oxford University Press; NESTA (2008) "Hidden
Innovation in the Creative Industries". London: NESTA; The
Work Foundation (2007) "Staying Ahead: The Economic Performance
of the UK's Creative Industries". London: Department for
Culture, Media and Sport ; DTI (2006) "DTI Occasional Paper
No.6: Innovation in the UK: indicators and insights". London:
DTI. Back
129
Moultrie; Cox; DTI. Back
130
Please see Owlstone Nanotech - Case-study in Appendix. Back
131
The Universities of Aberdeen, Cambridge, Leeds, Nottingham, Oxford,
UCL and York. Back
132
Please see: Report and recommendations from the Multi-Disciplinary
Design Network
http://www.designcouncil.org.uk/Documents/Documents/OurWork/MDnetwork/MDNetwork_FinalReport.pdf Back
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