3 March 2010

The Council recently established an advisory committee for its Design Research Mapping Project. The committee, drawn from member organisations and research leaders, met recently to develop aims and plans for the project. CHASS has argued strongly that Australia should be making more use of its design knowledge and design talent in building an innovative culture and the advisory committee will ensure that CHASS can strengthen its case for design to be considered together with research and development.

Design Research Mapping Project

The design research mapping project will demonstrate the value and potential value of Australian design research in improving productivity, wealth creation and social well-being.

It will do so by building an evidence base of the broad impact and focus of design research. It will point to the potential opportunity for Australia in expanding and enriching the role of design in problem solving.

This evidence base will be used to advocate for investment and support for design research within the Government's innovation strategies and also to build industry support for design. The mapping project will underpin the case for design as an essential element in all Enterprise Connect and Innovation Council projects.

Data and case studies - design contributes to industries across the economy

The ARC Centre for Excellence in Creative Industries and Innovation (CCI) has found that design based occupations make up 26 per cent of Australia's creative workforce.

Designers are widely dispersed through the economy in both manufacturing and service delivery. About 47,000 people (41% of the design workforce) were employed in specialist design occupations in non-design industries, including financial services, government, education and general business. The designers directly employed in the creative industries were often in small firms and concentrated in capital cities on the east coast.

CCI has also reported New Zealand and Danish research showing that investment in design results in better export performance, and those businesses that support design as part of their innovation processes grow faster.

Tracking design research

The next step of the project is data collection on design research in Australia, where design is an emerging discipline across the tertiary education sector.

The Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences will collate available quantitative data, starting with Australian Research Council projects in design, and will seek more information on a selective basis from institutions as needed. This data will be presented to the Australian Association of Design Research (AADR).

CHASS will also investigate access to and analysis of data collections in the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace relations and Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research.

Case studies

A significant element of this project will be a series of case studies. These case studies will show outcomes and potential outcomes in linking design research to industry development, service delivery, and how state government design strategies have served to encourage innovation.

The project will collect case studies through the Associate Deans of Research in Universities and Directors of Research Centres and Institutes. However its major focus will be on working with the new Australian and New Zealand Association of Design Research conference (currently in the planning stages). CHASS hopes to convene a roundtable with key leaders and researchers in design at the next meeting of the AADR.

The stories this project will tell will show design to be an enabling mindset, a skill set whose demand and supply is dispersed throughout the entire economy - in the research, industry, manufacturing, business, and social development sectors, to name just a few examples. Design services and solutions have a role to play across the economy and society, and design is the undeniable third leg of a research, development and design tripod.

2010 opportunities

State Governments (led by Victoria and Queensland) have developed design strategies as a resource and input into their manufacturing and service industries, but at national level there has been little strategic policy making.

With the development of the Creative Industries Innovation Centre within Enterprise Connect there is a rare opportunity to build knowledge transfer between emerging industries and researchers. 2010 is the year where effective policy strategies should be under consideration.

Committee members

Members of the committee include Professor Anthony Cahalan, President of the Council of Deans of Arts, Social Sciences and the Humanities; Distinguished Professor Stuart Cunningham of the Centre for Creative Industries and Innovation at QUT; Professor Ken Friedman, Dean of Design at Swinburne University of Technology; Professor Sue Rowley, Emeritus Professor at the University of Technology, Sydney; Professor Mark Burry, Director of the Design Research Institute at RMIT University; Professor Noel Frankham of the University of Tasmania; Dr Astrid Wootton of the Design Centre Launceston; Dr Norman Sheehan of Swinburne University of Technology. Catrina Vignando of Craft Australia has also contributed to the project.

Related links

• Changing the World
  Roy Green. CHASS website
• Swinburne Design portal
• CCI fact sheets on Australia's Creative Workforce
• RMIT's Design Research Institute website
• UTS Faculty of Design website

 

 

For more information, please contact:

Executive Director

Council of the Humanties, Arts and Social Sciences

Phone: +61 2 6249 1995

director@chass.org.au