Innoversity centre for Kingston
A new centre for design and innovation is being established by Kingston University and St George’s Medical School, University of London.
A new centre for design and innovation is being established by Kingston University and St George’s Medical School, University of London.
Dubbed Innoversity, the £250 000 design education centre will open in September, with a focus on multidisciplinary team-working to benefit the health and museum sectors.
The Innoversity teams will bring together Masters and research students, faculty staff and researchers from design, business, engineering and the social sciences at both education institutes.
A director will be appointed in June, with the centre scheduled to open on 1 September.
The initiative’s first projects will be designed by the university, but Kingston is approaching external companies to set future briefs.
Initially based within Kingston’s art, design and architecture faculty, the university aims to open a dedicated building for Innoversity.
Kingston University pro vice-chancellor for research and enterprise, Professor Penny Sparke, is heading the Innoversity development team.
She says, ‘I believe the centre will help take design out of the 20th century, where it had become little more than an extension of advertising, and into the 21st century as a creative and intellectual force to be reckoned with.’
Sparke claims that the project was borne out of the findings in the 2005 Cox Review, which recommended the establishment of a network of ‘creativity and innovation’ centres. Its team-working system resembles that being planned for the upcoming Dyson Design School.
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