By Karin Bendixen

The region of Extremadura is Europe´s first governmental authority to issue a decree granting financial support to promoting and implementing Design for All in the private sector. While this unprecedented initiative has aroused interest in other regions of Spain, the rest of Europe is not far behind. The government of Extremadura, which borders to the west with Portugal, is located in Merida.

Budget for Initiatives

According to Jaime Ruiz, General Manager of Industrial Promotion with the government of Extremadura, the purpose of the decree is to promote innovation and competitiveness among small and medium-sized enterprises, as it introduces a set of measures designed to help enterprise based in the region increase its innovation, competitiveness and quality. One of these measures provides a budget line that promotes Design for All as an innovative tool by funding two types of initiative:

• Subsidising 75 % of the project costs involved in creating awareness and promoting Design for All among enterprises;
  
• Subsidising 50 % of the costs incurred by those enterprises in applying Design for All to their production, design and marketing processes.

The Impact of Globalisation

Why has the government decided to subsidise the Design for All approach among private enterprises?

Jaime Ruiz: ‘Increasing globalisation and keen competition between companies mean that they depend on innovation for their survival. The Design for All concept shows everybody a new and different way of thinking: when a business adopts this concept, it is forced to innovate and be more competitive.

Profound Change

What is your personal view of Design for All?

Jaime Ruiz: ‘Design for All is a different and new way of interpreting the social market economy. It's a new way to compete, in a positive way – thinking of those who are different. It also aims at making better products for customers and users. It is a right and at the same time a requirement. When a company or an institution adopts Design for All thinking, it changes their entire approach, their organisation, their market analysis and the way their products are designed. The change is not just on the surface, but profound: it is a change of mentality.’

The Extremadura regional government’s initiative has also generated the first benefits: when it is a question of innovation and social issues, being up there among the first in the EU has an enormous impact in the regional media.

‘We have come out as a region with a commitment to change, one that thinks for everybody and is fairer, more equitable, more inclined to innovate and breed more competitive companies,’ concludes Jaime Ruiz.

Published in Crisp & Clear No. 4, December 2000