Design and innovation in the British Empire: a historical consideration of the innovation ecosystem

Design is a constantly evolving discipline, tied to the economy and playing a strategic role in the innovation ecosystem. This research will combine academic expertise in contemporary product design and history to explore the social and cultural drivers of innovation in a historical context to provide new insight into the factors promoting innovation, its application and impact. It will explore the nature of creativity in the industrial context, and the opportunities and restrictions provided by technology and business to the creative process. Additionally, it will provide a pathway to greater understanding of business development through the application of research knowledge and illuminate the prescriptive use of technology to understand how cultural and social groups at home and overseas, adopted products and processes to meet their own requirement - or rejected them in favour of established methods. This process of 'taming' technology (domestication) by peoples in a wide variety of imperial contexts has been underexplored by designers, historians, anthropologists and cultural theorists and this research will both expose this area and appeal to a broad range of disciplines.

By constructing a series of historical case studies, based on contemporary technological innovations such as steam power, the work will build a route to the greater understanding of and exposure to the nature of British imperialism and responses to it via a manageable research context and structure. It will also uncover insights into the nature of the Industrial Revolution and the industrial economy, with opportunities to apply the thinking behind this research to more modern industrial change in the developing economies of the world. By mapping these processes in an historical context, this research will shed light on contemporary design issues in a globalised economic context.

The research questions addressed by this research are:
1. What components constituted the innovation ecosystem in the mature industrial economy of nineteenth century Britain?
2. What was the impact of design on this economy and its wider imperial context?
3. How, and in what ways, were these technologies and innovations 'domesticated' by the colonised and what can this tell us about the nature of imperialism in this period?

Taken together, this research will provide a model for a new interdisciplinary approach, bringing together historical and product design methodologies and theoretical frameworks to build a fresh perspective on the nature of innovation and the impact of design. For design practitioners, this research will also provide historical precedents for the contemporary reception of new technologies across a globalised marketplace, as well as provide space for a critical interrogation of the purpose and consequences of these processes.

Impact on project team
The skills of the researchers will benefit by being exposed to new areas. The PI will be exposed to intricate archive research and the sourcing of primary sources for historical research. The CI will learn about the design process and how groups of people collaborate to innovate new designs. This provides a new and strategic academic link between distinct fields, and the intention of the project team is to build long-term collaboration between their institutions. Both partner institutions are admirably situated to support the development of this research, and its expansion into other networking and collaborative activities. The CI has already made links with the Duncan and Jordanstone College of Art and Design, University of Dundee, to access further expertise in the design field and situate the project into a positive institutional context. Likewise, the PI's institution, the University of Strathclyde, has as its mission to be among the leading technological universities in the world and its Department of Design, Manufacture and Engineering Management has extensive industrial contacts through Knowledge Exchange activity where the project findings on innovation can be applied.

Impact on society
The project team would establish relations with each of the participating archives during data collection, while the project workshops will allow these organisations to input ideas on the project direction and progress. The basis of this public engagement component will be organising and hosting of two stakeholder workshops, to highlight the research being completed under the development grant, but also to begin an engaged dialogue with future potential collaborators in the academic, museums and design business worlds. A larger-scale research programme is planned which will move beyond the case study findings to identify contemporary businesses, processes and environments where similar situations of domestication of technology may arise. This will result in a better understanding of how innovation can be harnessed not just in economic terms but for the benefit of society. As well as commercial organisations, the future findings would be of interest to educational and statutory groups such as the Design Council and the Higher Education Academy for wider industrial and educational use. These would be potential collaborators in any larger future grant application. Both the PI and CI have extensive experience of public engagement through research, and this would be a priority of the project. British-wide museum and archive links (Museum of English Rural Life, Scottish Rural museums Network, V&A Dundee) have already been made with a view to (1) to provide the RA with valuable public engagement and impact experience (2) to promote the project and awareness of its findings among key stakeholders.

This would be supplemented by use of social media to reach a wider audience: a project website and Facebook page will be established, and as research networks were built, project awareness would be increased via partner organisations' media outlets.

Other key beneficiaries are both teachers and pupils, and the CI's establishment and administration in 2011 of an online network for academics and schools and colleges (the Scottish History Resources group) will provide a ready-made entry point to impact on this group. This kind of dialogue between academic researchers, schools and local communities is critical to the development of future research and engagement directions, and will support the development of the Scottish Government's Curriculum for Excellence agenda. As part of this new curriculum, new History topics have been introduced into schools and colleges, one of which is Changing Britain, 1760-1900: this project will feed into work already started by the CI to enhance the resources available to teachers through the development of an updatable electronic resource pack.