Exploring design and innovation: further developments in the innovation curriculum

The Exploring Design and Innovation booklet was developed as a curriculum resource to disseminate information about Millennium Products and the Design Council's Sharing Innovation web site. The Sharing Innovation project examined over 80% of the 1000 plus Millennium Products, looking at their Inspiration, Implementation and Impact. This makes the associated web site a valuable resource of product case studies. The paper discusses the development of the booklet and its subsequent dissemination to tertiary education lecturers and the results of a follow up questionnaire. It goes on to examine research work that has been conducted since publication. This includes investigating more areas of the design process and drivers of innovation. Part of the research will also be looking at ways of extending the curriculum developments in the teaching of contextual design within tertiary education. Other areas include the methods used to disseminate this information, be it through further publications or by use of the internet. The paper reports on these developments and the progress in establishing greater cross-institutional and cross-subject collaboration within this research.