Design in Action - Chiasmas
Scottish Knowledge Exchange Hub
for the Creative Economy
September 2013 - December 2016
Design in Action (DiA) was a £5m Art and Humanities Research Council-funded Knowledge Exchange Hub for the Creative Economy. The project also received £400k from Creative Scotland to support SMEs that utilise design as a strategy for innovation, both within and out with the creative economy.
The Hub was formed by six partnering universities, each of them focusing on a different sector.
RURAL ECONOMIES: Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design - University of Dundee
SPORTS: Abertay University
WELLBEING: The Glasgow School of Art
FOOD: Gray’s College of Art at the Robert Gordon University
ICT: Edinburgh College of Art - University of Edinburgh
BUSINESS MODELS: University of St Andrews
I joined the Design in Action team as a PhD candidate in September 2014, a year after the project started. So when I arrived, the project and methodologies were well established. As part of the team, I participated in the planning, development and delivery of Chiasmas. Chiasmas are DiA-branded design workshops that functioned as a sandpit model, where interdisciplinary teams were drawn together in an intensive 2-3 day residential event to come up with new business ideas.
CHIASMAS
Chiasmas use design innovation methods to foster creativity and approach challenges from different perspectives.
Design in Action allocated up to £20,000 per idea and a range of support services to prototype ideas arising from the Chiasma process.
videos courtesy of Design in Action
DiA delivered a total of 14 Chiasmas (2-3 per university/sector). I participated in the following:
Beyond Mobile
dates: 5 - 7 February 2014
location: Edinburgh
sector: ICT
leading university: ECA
role: support | observation
Living Well
dates: 2 - 4 June 2014
location: Glasgow
sector: Wellbeing
leading university: GSA
role: organisation | facilitation
Sustaining Rural Scotland
dates: 21 - 23 October 2014
location: New Lanark Mills
sector: Rural economy
leading university: DJCAD
role: support | facilitation
Surviving and Thriving
dates: 3 - 5 November 2015
location: Newcastle
sector: Wellbeing
leading university: GSA |
role: support | facilitation
INSIGHT INTO THE PROCESS | Living Well, Self-Management of Health
CONTEXT
The healthcare and wellbeing sector is being challenged by an ageing population and those living with long term health conditions. Multi-morbidity diseases - obesity, heart disease, and diabetes - are on the rise. Self-management techniques are essential in helping individuals improve their health and wellbeing.
This Chiasma explore the influence of leisure, creativity, and lifestyle on our experiences ageing, and how these can be harnessed to develop collective and self-care techniques.
Research and Preparation
I worked closely with Dr Lynn-Sayers McHattie (DiA Research Fellow) and Dr Michael Pierre Johnson (DiA PhD candidate). We began preparations a couple of months before the Chiasma. This included research on the topic, development of the design activities and process the chiasma would follow, and event logistics.
Design Activities
Design activities sought to draw on participants’ experiences and expertise, unpacking insights, and collectively identifying needs and gaps that provided business opportunities.
To facilitate ideation, we defined four areas of focus - creativity, leisure, experience, lifestyle - and used prompt cards to trigger discussion and colour-coded flags to highlight opportunities, issues, and ideas.
Our role as facilitators was to encourage debate, summarise insights and opportunities, support the development of ideas and business proposals, and support teams forming groups around the ideas they were interested in developing.
Developing Business Proposals
The opportunities identified were further developed into business ideas within teams.
At the end of the chiasma, each team presented their business proposition. These were then evaluated by DiA’s expert panel in order to decide which ideas to fund.