Sir James Dyson and design leaders begin advising the ‘most exciting educational project in many years’

Details from the first meeting of Design London's Advisory Board.

Design London, a collaborative project between the Royal College of Art (RCA) and Imperial College London, met its new Advisory Board for the first time last week to discuss and agree the programme for the next five years.  Some of the biggest names in the world of international product and service design have announced their support for the new project, under the Advisory Board’s chairman Sir James Dyson.

Sir James explained his expectations for the project:
 “The Royal College of Art, Imperial College’s Faculty of Engineering and its Tanaka Business School are three wonderful institutions working on an area vital to our country’s economic success.  Design London will improve the integration of engineering, design technology and business. It’s exciting, it’s educational and I’m pleased to be involved.”

Sir James is joined by experienced designers and business people including Stefano Marzano, CEO of Philips Design; Graham Spittle, IBM Vice President and Chair of the UK Technology Strategy Board; Andrew Hargadon formerly of Apple and Oliver Stocken, Chairman of Home Retail Group, Deputy Chairman of 3i plc and former Group Finance Director of Barclay plc. Jonathan Kestenbaum, Chief Executive of the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, the organisation funding Design London’s interdisciplinary ‘incubator’ is also on the Board.

The Advisory Board provides strategic guidance and advice to the Design London team and also includes Sir George Cox, former Chairman of the Design Council.  Sir George’s 2005 report for then Chancellor, Gordon Brown – known as the Cox Review of Creativity in Business – identified the challenges that Design London will strive to tackle.

Well-respected figures from academia are also on the board including Professor Sir Christopher Frayling and Sir Richard Sykes respectively the RCA and Imperial College’s Rectors.  Professor Dame Julia Higgins from the College’s Department of Chemical Engineering and Chemical Technology is the tenth and final member of the Board.

Nick Leon outlined plans for the new teaching programme.  Design and Innovation will become core modules for Imperial’s MBA this year, and Design London will offer fellowships to develop the business skills of students and recent graduates of the RCA and Imperial’s Faculty of Engineering. This will create truly interdisciplinary environment for designers, engineers and MBA students to engage in design-led innovation, transforming creative ideas into potentially high value business ventures.

Design London will soon announce new simulation tools for its students and its commercial partners to prototype complex products and services. Design London’s commercial partners include both public and private sector organisations, especially those seeking to use design and an interdisciplinary approach to improve their performance and deliver innovative products and services.

ENDS
For further information, please contact

Elliott White, Press Manager, Tanaka Business School, Imperial College London on 020 7594 9154

Editor’s Notes:
About The Cox Review
Commissioned and endorsed by The Treasury – it recommended that Higher Education should play a distinctive role in improving the performance of British business innovation through 'centres of excellence' offering 'multidisciplinary programmes for research and postgraduate teaching' combining design, business, engineering and technology.

1) About Design London: 
Design London was established with £5.8 million backing from funding bodies.  1 October 2007 saw the appointment of Nick Leon as project director and the beginning of activities in earnest.
Design London’s aims are to:
• create new teaching programmes beginning January 2009, with an initial cohort of more than 70 students, growing to 300 in two years
• incubate new business ideas with first projects entering Design London’s Incubator in February 2008
• conduct research suitable for dissemination through taught programmes, sector specific workshops and conferences, and published in peer reviewed journals
• pioneer the next generation of innovation technology that combines the greatest concentration of digital modelling technology of any European university with advanced n-dimensional simulation capabilities
http://www.designlondon.net/

2) 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.
www.rca.ac.uk

3) About Imperial College
Imperial College London - rated the world’s fifth best university in the 2007 Times Higher Education Supplement University Rankings - is a science-based institution with a reputation for excellence in teaching and research that attracts 12,000 students and 6,000 staff of the highest international quality.
Innovative research at the College explores the interface between science, medicine, engineering and business, delivering practical solutions that improve quality of life and the environment - underpinned by a dynamic enterprise culture.
Website: www.imperial.ac.uk

4) 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.
www.imperial.ac.uk/tanaka