New British Inventors celebrates pioneering British designers and creates a platform for international debate about the potential of design to shape the future.

An emerging generation of British inventors is developing new modes of thinking and shaping advances in many fields of design. Operating across a range of scales these innovators have been forging new techniques and working practices, technological advances and inventive designs. They have the potential to fundamentally impact on everyday lives. Whether in architecture, design or fashion, they capture the popular imagination.

New British Inventors was launched in conjunction with the major touring exhibition Inside Heatherwick Studio.  The campaign celebrates many of the attributes of the studio’s own inventive approach: its preparedness to invest time in research, a desire for materials experimentation and a positive approach to risk-taking. These are attributes that we believe should be encouraged in contemporary design. 

As a starting point for New British Inventors, the British Council has selected ten diverse practices and projects as case studies to offer an insight into the world of design inventions. Besides their individual background and scale of their outcomes, each one of these stories celebrates innovation through design research and collaboration. Read more in our publication.

Through a programme of talks and workshops acting as a stimulus to discussion and debate, the British Council aims to highlight the new ideas, creative processes and design inventions of this new wave of British designers. We hope the New British Inventors campaign will broaden perspectives on contemporary practice, and create collaboration between designers and cultural institutions around the world.