Design Innovation Policy

Policy for design education

Abhimanyu Nohwar took a 6 month sabbatical in 2012 to work with the National Innovation Council, Planning Commission, Government of India, where he created an operational strategy and an implementation plan for his proposal to design new organisational structures for promoting the spread of design education and practice in India.

This proposal was adopted into policy, now called the National Initiative on Design Innovation.

Abhimanyu Nohwar presenting his work with the National Innovation Council, GOI, at the DDEI - Designing Design Education for India conference, Pune, 2013.

Impact

DICs or Design Innovation Centres were conceived as centers of design research and practice, attached to non-design educational institutions, thereby bringing the power of design to fields of learning that wouldn’t otherwise have any access to it. This would also help non-design disciplines learn and understand how to leverage design as part of a team based problem solving activity, and carry that knowledge forward into their careers as they disperse amongst the professional landscape after graduation, bringing design into the mainstream as an integrated discipline.

1. 20 Design Innovation Centers have already been established with 64 spoke institutions. DIC Hubs include 10 Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT), 9 Central/State Government Universities and a School of Planning and Architecture. A few of the DICs and their target areas:

  • Delhi University - acts as the hub to three spoke universities in the National Capital Region

  • Pune University - works in the research areas of chemical, physical, life sciences, social sciences, humanities and art.

  • Banaras Hindu University and IIT BHU - looks into Agriculture, Environment, Art & Culture, Health, Energy, Science & Technology, and Language & Computing.

  • IIT Roorkee - focuses on issues in the Himalayan region.

A number of projects, startups and even patents have already come out of these DICs, and there are dozens of applications to the Ministry of Human Resource Development from Universities across the country vying to make the selection for the next phase.

A total of 20 DICs were launched in the first phase, next the model will scale to the hundreds, bringing design capabilities to non-design fields of learning across the country!

2. ODS and NDIN have been established in IIT Bombay and Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore respectively.

3. The Open Design School model was adopted by the National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad - India’s premier design institution, in a paid online learning resource - NODE (NID’s Online Design Education). https://node.nid.edu/

To follow the requirements for application for DIC funding form the Government, visit this webpage.

Some links and press coverage on the DIC programme:

Delhi University’s Design Innovation Centre which acts as the hub to three spoke universities in the National Capital Region

IIT Roorkee gets funding for its DIC which will focus on issues in the Himalayan region.

Pune University’s DIC works in the research areas of chemical, physical, life sciences, social sciences, humanities and art.

A joint DIC between Banaras Hindu University and IIT BHU will look into Agriculture, Environment, Art & Culture, Health, Energy, Science & Technology, and Language & Computing.