Last December the UK Design Council held in London the Competitiveness Summit 2006, with the main purpose of evaluating the implementation of the Cox Review of Creativity in Business. The CoxReview, published in November 2005, had a series of guidelines to foster creativity and innovation in UK.
Apparently governmental institutions across Europe are starting to understand that innovation is the main engine of value creation in most economies. Sir George Cox, chairman of the UK Design Council, commented:
“Innovation will dictate the economic prosperity of nations, but the weakness of the UK is not being able to take full advantage of this. We produce people in art schools who don’t understand the language of the business world, and business people who don’t understand how to manage innovation. How can we combine their skills? Considering the much debated threat of China and India he argued they also represent great potential, but to take advantage of this we will need wit and imagination, and to be able to innovate.”
You can read a complete description about the Competitiveness Summit here.