Dr Antonius van den Broek
Lecturer and Programme Director, Institute for Design Innovation
Dr Antonius van den Broek is a Programme Director and Lecturer at the Institute for Design Innovation. He is specialised in the business side of design, particularly in the communicative role of design in strategy and management.
Antonius has a background in branding and motion design. He worked in the design industry for 10 years at various positions throughout Europe and the US. He is programme director for the MA Design and Branding programme, course lead for Design Thinking and honorary lecturer at MSc Design, Disability and Innovation programme with UCL. He was also visiting lecturer at Westminster Business School, London College of Communication, Central Saint Martins and Royal College of Art.
Academic background
Antonius obtained an MSc. in Design Management from University of Salford. He then continued exploring the paradoxes of design and business in his PhD at the London College of Communication (UAL) in collaboration with Westminster Business School. In his PhD, he analysed how business strategy emerged at a leading global design business. He currently lectures Design Thinking, Design Innovation, Research Methods and Foresight and Strategy.
Current research and collaborations
Antonius is currently working on the following research projects:
Strategy communication in creative businesses. Using video ethnography, this study aims to better understand how creative business leaders communicate business strategy in creative firms (in collaboration with Kingston University).
Ideology in design businesses. In this study we aim to understand how sociomaterial practices shape ideological positions and how these impact strategic decision making in design firms (in collaboration with Westminster Business School).
Entrepreneurial design innovation at large organisations. This study analyses the impact and dissemination of design innovation training at United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR).
Employee branding. This study aims to understand better how branding can facilitate awareness of organisational identity and what the role of visual/material is in constructing such shared understanding.
Current PhD / research supervisions
Stephen Cho – PhD title: Exploring Value Co-Creation Through Service Innovation: Managing Competing Logic in Creative Professional Service Firms
Willem Heesbeen – PhD title: Reification in Design Practices: Reconsidering the morphology of Design Practices to identify self‐imposed limitations and reactionary patterns in matters of social inter‐mediation and future making
Interests and activities
Antonius is involved in setting up the Academy for Design Innovation Management and organising conferences and workshops around the topic of design innovation management.
He is developing Radius, a visual strategy development digital platform that helps SMEs to make their strategy development process iterative and accessible for a wider audience.