Ryan, Martin and Vaughan, Trevor (2018) How Irish design consultancies align with Ireland's Innovation 2020 priorities: a preliminary study. ITERATIONS Design Research and Practice Review (7). pp. 18-25. ISSN 2009-8243

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Abstract

The Government of Ireland has positioned design as integral to the innovation landscape. In particular, it encourages innovations from designers that align with six thematic areas identified in the Innovation 2020 report. Those areas are health & medical, information & technology communications (ITC), food, energy, manufacturing & materials and service & business processes. However, research is yet to show the current contribution of design consultancies and their project outcomes categorised within these six priority thematic areas. This paper presents empirical findings on a review of 571 projects advertised on the websites of 26 design consultancies in Ireland. It shows that just under half of the reviewed design projects fall within the thematic project areas. Furthermore, this paper shows the differences between three design disciplines (product design, user-experience design and branding design) and their contribution of projects to each thematic area. The results of this empirical study are relevant and of use to design practitioners, clients and policy makers. For designers, this research identifies opportunities for new business and innovation within the Government of Ireland key thematic areas. For design clients, this research offers opportunities to seek input from relevant design disciplines according to the thematic alignment of their project. For policy makers, this research offers context of the six key thematic areas within the design disciplines in Ireland. Lastly, the results of this research suggest that across the disciplines of product, user-experience and branding design, preferred priority themes are evident.

Item Type:	Article
Keywords:	Innovation; Irish Design; Strategic Design; Product Design; User-Experience Design; Branding Design; Government of Ireland;
Academic Unit:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Design Innovation > Centre for Entrepreneurship, Design and Innovation, EDEN
Item ID:	10983
Identification Number:	https://doi.org/10.31880/10344/7522
Depositing User:	Martin Ryan
Date Deposited:	16 Sep 2019 08:54
Journal or Publication Title:	ITERATIONS Design Research and Practice Review
Refereed:	Yes
URI:
Use Licence:	This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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