Around the world, political leaders, corporate managers, and professionals are all acknowledging the value of design. It is an impressive consensus - good news for designers. However, this is not one but multiple stories. Different national priorities, a range of economic circumstances, a balance between service and product businesses that varies country to country, and diverse perspectives on managing the economy mean that there are many approaches to design and public policy. The articles in this issue of the Review highlight the mix of perspectives and analyze the advantages and limitations of available public policy options.

Articles

From the World’s First Design Policy to the World’s Best Design Policy 

Christian Scherfig, Merete Brunander, and Christina Melander 

Beyond the Document: Living Institutions of US National Design Policy
Elizabeth (Dori) Tunstall and Casey Jones

Local, Diffuse, and Bottom-up: A new Design Policy for Italy?
Venanzio Arquilla, Massimo Bianchini, and Stefano Maffei

Designing a National Design Policy for Mexico
Julio Frias

Design Policy in Flanders, Belgium
Johan Valcke

Estonia’s Tiger Leap into the World of Design
Georg Poslawski and Kristiina Sipelgas

Design Policy: An Introduction to What Matters
Gisele Raulik-Murphy, Gavin Cawood, and Alan Lewis

National Support for Design: Developing Propositional Models
Youngok Choi, Rachel Cooper, Sungwoo Lim, and Martyn Evans 

Design Industries and Policies in the UK and China: A Comparison
Qian Sun

Evaluating the Effectiveness of Asian Design Policies
Sang-Gyeun Ahn and Jeong-Man Song