Presentation of the results and the final deliverable Design Options Paper (DOP) of DCP project
The “Design Challenge Pilot”– DCP project brought three innovation agencies together, to jointly seek for a process to address local challenges, by capitalizing the expertise of innovative SMEs and by applying the Design Thinking methodology.
The three partners – Business and Cultural Development Centre (KEPA), Cardiff Metropolitan University (PDR) and Estonian Design Centre (EDC) – have a long-standing experience in rendering services to SMEs, as they manage national and regional programmes to reinforce entrepreneurship, as well as in Design Thinking, a methodology for tackling challenges by placing people at the heart of the whole process.
During the 18-months implementation of the project (from September 2019 to February 2021), the partners followed a certain procedure that was based on Twinning+ methodology, which led them to the final outcome of a pilot tested service of addressing urban social challenges by activating the local ecosystem, including the local SMEs.
More specifically, the project partners peer reviewed and assessed existing services and programmes for finding solutions to challenges with social impact and then, based on Design Thinking methodology, proceeded in synthesizing a new process for tackling urban social challenges with the contribution of local companies. The pilot application of the suggested methodology followed, which focused on the challenge of “How might we develop a common profile of the civil society organisations and strengthen their role in the local ecosystem of Thessaloniki?”.
All the above-mentioned activities ended up to the formulation of a guide on how innovation support agencies can cope with social problems, with the active involvement of SMEs in the whole process. This Design Options Paper (DOP) contains the standard procedure deployed into phases and stages of implementation, a series of suggested tools to be used, and also the outputs from the pilot testing on a real challenge.
The project’s results and the DOP were presented at the online final event that was held on 26.02.2021.
The final version of DOP is being published and becomes available to anyone interested, with the present article.
The final deliverable of DCP project can be found here: Design Options Paper
More information about DCP project can be found here.
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 853667.