This paper reports on the evaluation of knowledge exchange and impact generated through Design in Action (DiA), a design-led business support approach to answering the Arts and Humanities Research Council's call for knowledge exchange hubs.

Can evaluation approaches to knowledge exchange reveal the complexity of impacts for design-led business support? Does design have a particular set of methods and processes relevant to knowledge exchange? To address these questions, the paper draws on both interview and survey material, and uses Nutley/Meaghar Prism to analyse the emergent data. Nutley/Meaghar Prism enables us to see different aspects of something in process which is otherwise indistinguishable, just as a prism enables us to see difference wave lengths of light manifest as the colour spectrum.

The paper addresses the interests of multiple stakeholders including economic development agencies, research councils, arts and cultural development bodies as well as design researchers and knowledge exchange intermediaries through demonstrating the multi-faceted value of design-led business support approaches to knowledge exchange programmes.