SVID, Swedish Industrial Design Foundation – your toolkit and partner for a circular everyday life

SVID is here to bridge the gap between research, industry and the rest of society to increase innovation and green transition using design as a tool for radical change.

By bringing together a number of actors, SVID strives to develop a competitive industry and strengthen society’s competence for green transition, sustainable development and innovation, and a developed circular economy through design methodology.

Through the preparatory project Design Impact – People Powered Transformation within Impact Innovation – a next-generation strategic innovation program run by the Energy Agency, Formas and Vinnova – SVID and a number of actors throughout the country have formulated a roadmap for radical change. The roadmap details how actors can jointly contribute to creating attractive living environments using design methodologies and cooperation to aid society’s green transition. Luleå University of Technology, Linköping University, Malmö University, Konstfack are some of the universities that are part of the partnership together with a large number of partners from academia, business, the public sector and organisations.

Struktur Design.

Another important complementary context for SVID is the interdisciplinary research and innovation program Design for Energy-Efficient Everyday Life that’s being coordinated by the foundation. By combining three perspectives – behaviour, energy and design – the program focuses on the role of individuals and groups in the energy system. The program provides funding to projects that combine energy research and development with design and behaviour science to develop new business models, knowledge, technology, products and services.

EY Doberman.

A particular challenge lies in the fact that society’s transformation, the green system shift, must take place in a short time – approximately ten years if you listen to the researchers and the most ambitious roadmaps for a fossil-free future. A logical conclusion would therefore be to hire more designers – to let the decade that will define our future also become the decade of designers. For example, over SEK 1,000 billion is to be invested in the gigantic industrial transformation in the Arctic regions in the Northern parts of Sweden. And with this comes, of course, a major restructuring of the entire social structure. Yes, complex questions often require complex answers and here design and design processes can make a difference, especially if designers are given the opportunity to enter early in the planning given the right conditions to operate in more policy areas.

SVID wants to contribute to this. Through a developed collaboration with the regions of Norrbotten, Västerbotten and Skellefteå municipality, we are now establishing the Arctic Design Center, a platform for co-creation around development in northern Sweden, with a focus on the growth of new industry, the green transformation of society, and attractive living environments. Here, designers, artists and architects together with public actors, the business world, academia and civil society must jointly build a visionary and sustainable future, in which it is precisely the designer’s way of working that must serve as the engine of development.

To quote John Thackara, former director of the Dutch Design Institute; “It is not design that will save the planet from the challenges of our time – but the chances increase if we use a designer’s way of thinking and working”.

Boid.

Jonas Olsson, CEO SVID, Swedish Industrial Design Foundation

SVID, the Swedish Industrial Design Foundation, is an independent research and development foundation that since 1989 has developed Swedish companies, society and organisations with design. SVID was founded by the Statens industriverk, IVA, The Royal Academy of Engineering Sciences and the association Svensk Form and has its main mission and operating grant from the Agency for Regional Growth (Tillväxtverket).

www.svid.se
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