Design
Human-centred design is for businesses of any size who are interested in early-stage innovation strategy. For start-ups, strategic design helps get brilliant ideas to the right market. For established businesses, it helps reposition or expand their offering.
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People make logical decisions in the pursuit of science, technology and commerce. People are also emotional beings, and those emotions can drive us far harder than reason. When business success is dependent on human behaviour to do the right thing, your business should seek support from human-centred designers.
By focusing on what people need, how people behave, what they aspire to, businesses can use these key insights to achieve greater success in the market.
The Design in Innovation team at Innovate UK KTN can help you whether you are:
- A designer looking for opportunities to engage with businesses on activities needing human-centred design support
- A business wanting to understand how to deploy human-centred design in your business
- A business wondering whether human-centred design might be a valuable capability to add into your R&D portfolio
Specifically you might want to:
- Look for funding and opportunities to apply design in different sectors and industries
- Find a designer with the right expertise to collaborate with and help your business develop
- Get some quick insights about how companies are best utilising human centred design in their R&D
You can also keep up to date with news, funding and events across the Design sector by connecting with the Innovate UK KTN Design Foundations group on LinkedIn.

Our current focus in this area
Related Opportunities
Design Foundations: Repairability
Opens: 30/10/2023 Closes: 10/01/2024
UK registered organisations can apply for a share of up to £2m for people centred and systemic design projects to inform and de-risk future R&D activity.
More Information
Fairness Innovation Challenge - addressing bias and discrimination in AI
Opens: 16/10/2023 Closes: 13/12/2023
UK registered organisations can apply for a share of up to £400k for projects resulting in new solutions to address bias and discrimination in AI systems.
More Information
Innovate UK innovation loans future economy: round 12
Opens: 09/11/2023 Closes: 10/01/2024
UK registered businesses can apply for loans for innovative projects with strong commercial potential to significantly improve the UK economy.
More Information
Related Case Studies

Ignite Labs x BridgeAI: Transforming Innovators' AI Journey
Explore how Ignite Labs x BridgeAI empowers businesses to harness the potential of AI for innovation, offering insights, cross-sector collaboration, and funding opportunities.