2020 Vision - The UK Design Industry in 2020

The project focuses on researching the challenges facing the UK design industry over the next decade, and will consult agencies, clients, trade associations, and journalists, HEIs (design course directors) economists and policy-makers via a range of interviews and surveys to establish a blueprint for industry. The proposal supports leading edge design research, which explores new modes of design thinking suitable for the challenges facing 21st Century society.

Various government initiatives have looked at technology and enterprise. However, the creative industries (and particularly the 71,000 employees in the commercial design, as opposed to designer-maker, sector) have not received the attention they warrant, despite the fact that creative capabilities lie at the core of the UK’s ability to compete, substantiated in a study by the DTI (economics Paper No 15, Creativity, Design and Business Performance). Of the other organisation within the sector, the Design Council’s remit is now focused on championing the use of creative skills in business and society, and on design as an export commodity rather than on policy in the design industry itself, whilst the newly formed Creative Industry Sector Skills Council has focused on skills provision.

It is proposed that the University of Salford will survey design managers, design course directors and graduates/alumni across the UK and EU through their extensive overseas design links, HEI’s in China, Korea and India and this will be undertaken with a number of key industry partners.

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