Universities marry creativity with engineering

The UK's first national Centre for Competitive Creative Design, named C4D, will be a creative hothouse to be built on the Cranfield campus.

Improving creativity and competiveness among UK businesses is the focus of a new GBP 5.5 million partnership between engineering, management, science, technology institution Cranfield University and Europe's largest specialist design, art and communication university, University of the Arts London.

GBP 3.5 million of HEFCE Strategic Development Funding (SDF) will create the UK's first national Centre for Competitive Creative Design, named C4D - a creative hothouse that will be built on the Cranfield campus.

The aim of C4D is to encourage students, lecturers, researchers and industry partners to explore creativity and use design as a core driver to improve innovation and competitive practice in UK and global industries.

The collaboration will bring together both universities' expertise to deliver a novel Masters' degree in design.

The new courses, which start in October next year, will provide the UK with the next generation of creative design experts working in the manufacturing, health, creative and telecomms sectors.

The partnership between Cranfield and University of the Arts London was formed in response to the 2005 Cox Review of Creativity in Business which found that in order to compete on a global scale the UK manufacturing industry needs to drive design into the heart of engineering, technology and management process to make fully integrated products.

Although Cranfield is already at the leading edge of this trend, spearheading research that combines engineering with design for many industrial clients and University of the Arts London enjoys an international reputation as a hothouse of creative talent, the C4D Centre aims to fuse these elements in a holistic approach, supporting organisations and teaching students to apply design thinking throughout an organisation - an approach which benefits the whole business operation.

Professor Rajkumar Roy, leading the Competitive Creative Design Initiative at Cranfield, commented: "C4D is about changing the way that Cranfield, University of the Arts London and the wider business community think about and use creative design capability to enhance competitiveness".

"This is an ambitious collaboration between two leading UK partners, as embedding creative design thinking in business processes is still a relatively new concept".

"The initiative is therefore timely and one that we anticipate will have the potential to greatly influence industry approaches and capabilities".

University of the Arts London's Michael Bradshaw says: "By providing students with the unique opportunity to experience working in cross-disciplinary teams across University of the Arts London and Cranfield, and encouraging them to think about how the business and creative industries can work together, C4D heralds a new approach to both education and industry as a whole".

"Bringing creativity and design into business will infuse life into UK companies, and is vital if they are to stay ahead of their global competitors".

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