See

Sharing Experience Europe - Policy Innovation Design

Thematic Workshop Tallinn

On 6 and 7 December 2010, the SEE project partners from Estonia and Ireland organised the fifth project workshop as an extra activity on the theme ‘Meeting of Minds: Next Generation Design Support Programmes’ in Tallinn, Estonia. The purpose of the two days was to distil best practice and outline an approach for creating ‘next practice’ for programmes. The event was opened by the Deputy Secretary General for Economic Affairs and Communication, Ahti Kuningas, who mentioned that as a result of the spotlight on design, partly as a result of SEE project activities, he now understood design as a much broader topic and look forward to learning from the best ranking design countries across the world. The workshop brought together delegates from Enterprise Estonia (the primary provider of support to Estonia’s entrepreneurs) and the Ministry for Economic Affairs and Communications as well as coordinators of design support programmes in Brazil, Denmark, Ireland, New Zealand, UK and Wales. 

Brazil – Criação Paraná, presented by Ken Fonseca

Denmark – 360° Design & Design Boost, presented by Christina Melander

Ireland – Innovation by Design, presented by Justin Knecht

New Zealand – Better by Design, presented by Judith Thompson

UK – UK Design Programmes, presented by Jonathan Ball

Wales – Service Design Programme, presented by Paul Thurston

For more information on any of these design support programme visit the SEE project Case Study Library at www.seeproject.org/casestudy.

The second day involved an interactive session to develop an outline approach for a new programme, using Estonia as a case example. Firstly, the workshop participants mapped the key learnings from the six examples onto the ‘Business Support Canvas’ developed by the facilitators Justin Knecht and Jonathan Ball. 

Secondly, in order for these observations to be applicable in an Estonian context, we heard presentations from Martin Pärn, practicing designer and PhD candidate about the history of design in Estonia, Lylian Meister from the Estonian Academy of Arts in Tallinn about design education and Kristiina Sipelgas from the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications about design sector developments and state programmes. 

The output of the workshop will be presented in a report that will be made available on the SEE project website in the coming months.