Beyond the Crisis: Design for a sustainable future

23 - 24th November    Brussels, Belgium

Simon O’Rafferty attended the European Year of Creativity and Innovation(EYCI)  flagship conference in Brussels. This conference was organised by European Commission Directorate-General for Education and Culture.  The conference organisers wanted to “develop an understanding of design thinking as a multi-dimensional and multi-disciplinary process that bridges creativity and innovation, culture and the economy”.  The conference included keynote speeches from two of the EYCI Ambassadors, Erik Spiekermann (designer) and Damini Kumar (Design Professor NUI Maynooth). There were a number of other presentations from leading companies such as Google, Kone and Intel.

The main themes of the conference were the challenges of the current economic crisis, climate change and competition from emerging economies – and what role design and creativity play in this and what new directions need to be taken. The backdrop of the event were the recent developments towards a European design policy, the Lisbon strategy and launch of the manifesto of the EYCI ambassadors and the recommendations of the business panel on EU innovation policy. There was also mention of an upcoming green paper on the creative industries and the new EU 2020 strategy – this strategy will place a strong emphasis on design and creativity.