Design-London appointment marks the dawn of a new design age

Creating a stir - innovative collaboration between design, engineering and business - News Release

Joint Royal College of Art and Imperial College London News Release

For immediate use
Wednesday 19 September 2007

Changing the way businesses bring ideas to market is the vision behind the new Design-London project, says director, Nick Leon, who is formally appointed on 1 October 2007.

Nick is the first appointment to the project that was created in July this year, bringing together the Royal College of Art and Imperial College London, with £5.8 million of backing from HEFCE and NESTA. The initiative follows the recommendations made in the Cox Report on Creativity in Business.

He joins the project from Imperial’s Tanaka Business School, where he is a Visiting Fellow and teaches on innovation studies.

The project has been set up to combine the disciplines of design, engineering, technology and business to address the challenges of future innovation. It brings together expertise in design from the Royal College of Art, engineering from Imperial College’s Faculty of Engineering and the business of innovation from Imperial College’s Tanaka Business School.

Nick Leon explains: "Successful innovation demands a systemic not a component approach to designing new products and services. Edison didn’t just patent a light bulb - he delivered an entire new system that changed our world. He was an engineer, a master systems thinker, conceptualizer and entrepreneur. Design-London may not find the next Edison, but we can stir together those same domains of expertise in multidisciplinary teams."

Nick adds: "Our aim is to disseminate new practice in innovation by creating new teaching programmes, conducting top-level research, incubating new business ideas and pioneering the next generation of innovation technology."

Nick began his career as an industrial designer at IBM, moving from designing products then services, through to developing entire new businesses in his role as Business Development Director for IBM’s Global Services division in Europe.

His work in the Tanaka Business School addresses the impact of information and communication technologies (ICTs) on the social and economic vitality of cities.

Recent projects include: advising the Barcelona City Government on creating an international district for innovation; advising CLM, the London 2012 delivery partner; projects for the Shoreditch Trust, Laing O’Rourke; and research for Cloud Networks who implemented the newly launched WiFi networks for Canary Wharf and the City of London.

Design-London has also appointed Professor Bruce Tether as Director of Research. Bruce joins the project from Manchester Business School where he was Professor of Innovation Management and Strategy.

Welcoming Bruce’s appointment, Nick says: "Bruce is an expert in systems of innovation and his expertise will enable Design-London to research the new business models that are needed."

For further information, please contact:

Elliott White
Press Manager
Tanaka Business School
Tel: +44 020 7594 9154
Email: e.white@imperial.ac.uk

Notes to editors:

The Cox Review - commissioned and endorsed by The Treasury -recommends that Higher Education should play a distinctive role in improving the performance of British busines innovation through 'centres of excellence' offering 'multidisciplinary programmes for research and postgraduate teaching' combining design, business, engineering and technology.

About Design-London

Design-London at RCA-Imperial will create an 'innovation triangle' between design (represented by the Royal College of Art), engineering and technology (represented by Imperial College Faculty of Engineering) and the business of innovation (represented by Imperial's Tanaka Business School).

Within this 'innovation triangle', teaching will promote knowledge interchange between MA, MEng and MBA students from the RCA and Imperial; research will explore how design can be more effectively integrated with business and technology to create world-beating products and services; entrepreneurial graduates from RCA and Imperial will be given the opportunity to develop new ideas in the 'Incubator', a dynamic multi-disciplinary environment for business development which will support unique or unexpected collaborations between different disciplines, organisations and places; and business partners of RCA and Imperial will be able to build innovation capacity via simulation exercises, digital tools and facilitation in the 'Simulator'.

About the Royal College of Art

The Royal College of Art is the world's only wholly postgraduate university of art and design, specialising in teaching and research and offering the degrees of MA, MPhil and PhD across the disciplines of fine art, applied art, design, communications and humanities. There are over 900 masters and doctoral students and more than a hundred professionals interacting with them - including scholars, leading art and design practitioners, along with specialists, advisors and distinguished visitors.
WEbsite: www.rca.ac.uk

About Imperial College London

Rated as the world's ninth best university in the 2006 Times Higher Education Supplement University Rankings, Imperial College London is a science-based institution with a reputation for excellence in teaching and research that attracts 11,500 students and 6,000 staff of the highest international quality.

Innovative research at the College explores the interface between science, medicine, engineering and management and delivers practical solutions that improve quality of life and the environment - underpinned by a dynamic enterprise culture.

With 62 Fellows of the Royal Society among our current academic staff and distinguished past members of the College including 14 Nobel Laureates and two Fields Medallists, Imperial's contribution to society has been immense. Inventions and innovations include the discovery of penicillin, the development of holography and the foundations of fibre optics. This commitment to the application of our research for the benefit of all continues today with current focuses including interdisciplinary collaborations to tackle climate change and mathematical modelling to predict and control the spread of infectious diseases.

The College's 100 years of living science will be celebrated throughout 2007 with a range of events to mark the Centenary of the signing of Imperial's founding charter on 8 July 1907.
Website: www.imperial.ac.uk

About the Faculty of Engineering

Imperial College's Faculty of Engineering is one of the largest in the UK with 1,000 staff and over 4,700 students. In the 2006 Times Higher Education Supplement World University Rankings for Engineering and IT Universities it was the top UK and European university and fourth in the World.

About the Tanaka Business School

Imperial College's Tanaka Business School is a world-class provider of business education and research, building on Imperial's strengths through focusing on innovation and entrepreneurship, finance and healthcare management. The School offers full-time and executive MBAs, Masters programmes in Finance, Risk Management, International Health management, Management and Actuarial Finance; and a Doctoral programme. The School's Innovation and Entrepreneurship faculty group is the leading research group of its kind in Europe, having received over £25m in funding from governmental and corporate sponsors.
Website: www.imperial.ac.uk/tanaka