The aim of the paper is to foster a discussion in the engineering design community about itsunderstanding of the innovation phenomena and the unique contribution that comes from engineeringdesign. The paper reports on the dialouge originating from a series of workshops with participants fromdifferent backgrounds in engineering design, systems engineering, industrial design psychology andbusiness.Definitions of innovation are revisited as used in business, management and engineering designcontexts. The role of innovation is then discussed related to product development from (i) themanagement perspective, (ii) a systems architecture perspective and (iii) in relation to sustainabledevelopment as one driver of innovation.It is argued that engineering design has a central role in how to realise the novelty aspect of innovationand often plays a critical role in maturing these into the valuable products, and there is a need to articulatethe role of engineering design in innovation to better resonate with the business and managementresearch.