Innovate UK, the start-up accelerator for the UK has launched its four-year plan setting out its strategy to promote business growth ahead of the Brexit transition period.
Entitled Design in Innovation strategy, 2020-2024, the plan will seek to “support excellent design in innovation” by encouraging businesses to “embed design within their processes and culture”.
To address this, the report will centre around four key themes, including; making the case for investment in design; reducing the cost of entry for those new to design; helping businesses access the best design talent, and helping businesses maximise the value contribution of design.
The four-year programme will also consist of new grant funding opportunities for “human-centred design activity”, as well as traditional and alternative finance routes.
The plan comes after a major economic study, published by McKinsey and the Design Management Institute (DMI), found that businesses with strong design capability outperform their peers by around 200 per cent in terms of revenue and shareholder returns.
This is achieved by delivering more valuable outcomes, reducing innovation risk, accelerating scale-up and improving business performance, the research found.
Commenting on the launch of the new four-year strategy, Dr Ian Campbell, Executive Chair of Innovate UK, said: “Over the last five years, our programmes of investment and support for design have produced impressive results. However, more can be done – despite the UK’s enormous strengths in design, there remains a significant opportunity for more businesses to exploit that potential: recognising, adopting and investing in the best quality design to innovate more effectively, compete successfully and grow faster.
“As this strategy demonstrates, for those businesses and organisations that truly embed design into their innovation processes and strategies, the potential benefits are considerable.”
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