This report is the summary of a study of design policy and design-promoting initiatives in the Netherlands, Flanders, South Korea and the USA. The aim of the study was to illustrate how design promotion is used as a means of growth policy to stimulate competitiveness. The selection of countries was based on a desire to update the picture presented in an earlier report (SOU 2000:75).

However, design policy in Flanders has not previously been described The idea that globalization is placing the content of the policy under pressure in a number of areas is nothing new. In the intensifying global competition, enterprises must become better and faster at renewing their products, as well as delivering their innovations to the market. It is in this context that design is being seen as an ever- more important tool. Through political initiatives and measures of various kinds, governments are trying to promote and facilitate the use of design by enterprises in order to strengthen their competitiveness and thereby stimulate national growth.

http://www.dx.org/site/design_exchange/assets/pdf/Swedish_design_policy_report.pdf