Horizon 2020

KEPA, Luxinnovation and MBB start a new Horizon 2020 project on design support programmes for SMEs.
Design for Europe partners KEPA (Business and Cultural Development Center) and Luxinnovation together with MBB (Malta Business Bureau), ambassador of DfE in Malta, will start soon a new Horizon 2020 project with the name DesignShots. Through a peer-learning exercise, we will review different existing Design-Driven Innovation Programmes, their pros and cons as well as their relevance and potential applicability in our respective countries: Greece, Luxembourg and Malta. The project will focus on the use of design by business, particularly SMEs. Together we will explore how innovation agencies and business intermediary agencies like ourselves can better support businesses in integrating design into their innovation processes.

KEPA, Luxinnovation and MBB start a new Horizon 2020 project on design support programmes for SMEs.
Design for Europe partners KEPA (Business and Cultural Development Center) and Luxinnovation together with MBB (Malta Business Bureau), ambassador of DfE in Malta, will start soon a new Horizon 2020 project with the name DesignShots. Through a peer-learning exercise, we will review different existing Design-Driven Innovation Programmes, their pros and cons as well as their relevance and potential applicability in our respective countries: Greece, Luxembourg and Malta. The project will focus on the use of design by business, particularly SMEs. Together we will explore how innovation agencies and business intermediary agencies like ourselves can better support businesses in integrating design into their innovation processes.
The basic DesignShots concept is to tackle the challenges that European SMEs face to integrate Design Driven Innovation and become more completive and resilient. Therefore, we will particularly explore the possibilities to use different support opportunities depending on the level of the design maturity of the company for SMEs competitiveness and growth. To this end, we will use some of the tools to diagnose the level of design into SMEs that are already available on Design for Europe resource repository. Most importantly, we will test the pilot DesignShots service produced out of the peer-learning exercises with 5 SMEs in each region: Design Shots will be 1-hour company diagnosis regarding the design need of the enterprise.
DesignShots will give KEPA, Luxinnovation and MBB the opportunity to further capitalise on the momentum gained by design through Design for Europe (Capturing the Impact of Design for Europe). Our participation both as partners (KEPA and Luxinnovation) and as ambassador (MBB) in DfE helped us advance the case for design among both the private and the public sector in our regions. With DesignShots we will be able to keep on this track and tweak our design support services to SMEs. The final output of the project will be a guide ‘Design Options Paper’ that will serve as a guide providing tips and recommendations to other business support centres when putting in place or improving design services.