Design Council to work on policy for European Commission

Design Council has been appointed to help bring a design-led approach to European Commission policy.

The organisation has been awarded a four-year contract and will work on policy formulation and implementation for the European body.

Design Council says it won the contract after the EC put out a call in autumn 2015 to find design capabilities to help it create and apply policy.

It says it was appointed due to its experience in the field, including design support work for the public sector in the UK and design challenges around issues such as accident & emergency delivery and design for care.

Design Council says: “Governments around the world are considering how design can enable them to systemise innovation more effectively.

“Over the last five years, Design Council’s work has increasingly focused on approaches that enable them to achieve this, building new capabilities in policy professionals and strengthening how public policies are developed and implemented.”

Ellie Runcie, director of future programmes at Design Council, says: “We have been pioneering the use of strategic design to drive innovation in the public sector for more than a decade.

“In that time, we’ve delivered more than 100 interventions, from local authority to central government level. We’re particularly excited to support the European Commission to apply strategic design approaches to tackle policy challenges at a pan-European level.”

Recent research from the European Commission shows that almost one-third of business in the European Union see design as integral to their strategy and development.

The findings, released last year, show that 62% of EU companies say they use design in their business.

They also suggest that European companies are more likely to use design than their US counterparts, with only 51% of US companies saying they use design in their business.

Discover more

• One in three European businesses “see design as integral”