Include 2003
inclusive design for society and business

Royal College of Art, 25-28 March 2003

Introduction

It gives us great pleasure to welcome delegates from around the world to Include 2003. This is the second of what we hope will become a regular biennial feature in the inclusive design calendar.

This year's event is made possible through generous funding from the Laura Ashley Foundation. We would like to take this opportunity to thank the Foundation for its continuing support.

The object of these conferences is to build bridges between researchers, practitioners and companies who have identified inclusive design as a strategy around which social and commercial objectives can converge.

The conference is an opportunity to survey best practice, and confront the challenges of implementing design solutions in ways that match contemporary aspirations for an inclusive society. In the process we will engage in discussions and debate, listen to a range of exciting and thought provoking papers and presentations, review current best practice and identify future opportunities, and most importantly spend several days in each others' company.

The key outcome for us all, beyond bringing ourselves up to date, is to build the networks that will spearhead practice in the coming years and make a reality of the opportunities inclusive design provides for business and society.

We would also like to thank the Design Council for sponsoring the accompanying book - Inclusive Design: design for the whole population. This book is a key outcome of the EPSRC-funded i-design research project, and the conference marks the end of a three year series of events and publications under that programme. The publication of the conference proceedings on CD-rom are made possible by generous support from the Discovery Research Laboratory of the Centre for Global Education and Research at Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, Japan.

Prof Roger Coleman, Helen Hamlyn Research Centre
Prof Alastair Macdonald, Glasgow School of Art