Three challenges and nine initatives

• The government will promote a more efficient market for design services including an effort to make the potential value of design visible for the private and public sector. The goal is to increase the added value per employee in the design businesses towards the average of the business services in general. Another goal to make more Danish businesses use strategic design.
• The government will take steps to make the Danish design educations more internationally oriented and more focused on the needs of the companies. The goal is to achieve an increase in the employment levels for recently graduated designers that is similar to the general employment level of recent graduates.
• The government will promote Danish design internationally to encourage the design businesses to compete on the global market. The target is that the export ratio of the design business increases to approximately 30 %, which is the level of architects and consulting engineers.

The initiatives under the three main efforts will contribute to bring Denmark among the world leaders in the new strategic design field. The efforts take their starting point in the strong Danish position in the classical areas of design.

A more efficient market for design services

The nine initiatives in DesignDenmark are:
1. Danish Design Centre must promote the use of design in all of the regions, in cooperation with the “growth centres”. The effort must be focused on sectors with a large unexploited potential.

2. In the period from 2007 to 2009 aseries of demonstrations projects focused on the use of design in public services is initiated. Simultaneously a strategic cooperation with the public authorities and institutes of education in UK is launched.

3. The government has initiated an analysis which will investigate the opportunities of establishing one or more “fashion zones” in Denmark. These are going to be areas where design businesses can cooperate in networks with product and service development etc.

4. The government will create better access to knowledge on the protection of the property rights to design. This is initiated through the introduction of new courses in the “growth centres” which will inform about the protection of the rights of designs. The Design:GUARD where designers can get guidance about intellectual property rights is also continued.

5. The long-term higher design educations must strengthen the cooperation with the businesses, including the establishing of a board of employers. At the same time the design educations must enter into strategic co operations with leading foreign design educations. The educations must be accredited in 2010 at the latest.

6. The short- and medium-term higher design educations under the Department of Education must be targeted the needs of the businesses. Working experience is going to be a mandatory part of all the business academy educations and it will be possible to complete part of the education abroad. The professional environment and the cooperation with the businesses must also be strengthened.

7. The competences of the design educated workforce must be strengthened through supplementary education in the new fields of design, for example service design and interaction design, and in business service in general. The “knowledge pilot” program is extended beyond the big cities. This means that more businesses can get subsidies to hire designers and in that way gain experience with hiring and working with designers.

8. A new internationally recognised design week is hosted in Denmark. It will be carried out in connection with the INDEX: design award. At the same time international travelling exhibitions on Danish design, architecture etc. is conducted.

9. The internationalisation of Danish design is strengthened through a series of investment- and export promoting initiatives. The target is to give the Danish design sector access to foreign networks, knowledge, technology and investors, as well as attracting the design divisions of international businesses to Denmark.