'T317 Innovation: Designing for Change', launched in 2014 and attracts 400–600 students annually. The module includes experiential project-based learning, culminating in a detailed design concept as the final assessment. A core tool is the Innovation Landscape Matrix (ILM) (Dewberry et al, 2024), created to help students explore the design ecologies of products, services, and systems through a sustainability lens.

The ILM encourages students to consider where innovation might best be focused, moving beyond conventional product-based responses. Students undertake independent research to address questions across nine areas of the matrix. The bottom left emphasises product and material explorations, while the top right expands to systemic issues: ecological impacts by location, ethics of resource use, regulatory systems, cultural norms, and technology trends. This shift in perspective enables students to challenge established design norms and develop new narratives to support sustainable transitions (Dewberry, 2018).

Over the past decade, thousands of design-for-sustainability projects have used the ILM, with associate lecturers also applying it in professional contexts. The exercise aligns with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly 'SDG 12: Responsible Consumption and Production', demonstrating its impact on both learning and practice.

Author: Emma Dewberry, Open University, Senior Lecturer School of Engineering and Innovation.

References
Dewberry, Emma; Boehnert, Joanna and Sinclair, Matt (2024). Design Ecologies Exercise: The Innovation Landscape Matrix. In: Egenhoefer, Rachel Beth ed. Routledge Handbook of Sustainable Design, 2nd ed. London: Routledge, pp. 618–623

Dewberry, Emma (2018). Eco-literacy in Transition: the role of design ecologies in developing our capacity for radical change. In: Can Design Catalyse the Great Transition? Papers from the Transition Design Symposium 2016 (Kossoff, Gideon and Potts, Ruth eds.), The School of Design at Carnegie Mellon University, Schumacher College and the New Weather Institute. pp. 127–136.