Proceedings of the ECCS 2005 satellite workshop: embracing complexity in design - Paris 17 November 2005

Embracing complexity in design is one of the critical issues and challenges of the 21st century. As the realization grows that design activities and artefacts display properties associated with complex adaptive systems, so grows the need to use complexity concepts and methods to understand these properties and inform the design of better artifacts. It is a great challenge because complexity science represents an epistemological and methodological swift that promises a holistic approach in the understanding and operational support of design. But design is also a major contributor in complexity research. Design science is concerned with problems that are fundamental in the sciences in general and complexity sciences in particular. For instance, design has been perceived and studied as a ubiquitous activity inherent in every human activity, as the art of generating hypotheses, as a type of experiment, or as a creative co-evolutionary process. Design science and its established approaches and practices can be a great source for advancement and innovation in complexity science. These proceedings are the result of a workshop organized as part of the activities of a UK government AHRB/EPSRC funded research cluster called Embracing Complexity in Design (www.complexityanddesign.net) and the European Conference in Complex Systems (complexsystems.lri.fr). Embracing complexity in design is one of the critical issues and challenges of the 21st century. As the realization grows that design activities and artefacts display properties associated with complex adaptive systems, so grows the need to use complexity concepts and methods to understand these properties and inform the design of better artifacts. It is a great challenge because complexity science represents an epistemological and methodological swift that promises a holistic approach in the understanding and operational support of design. But design is also a major contributor in complexity research. Design science is concerned with problems that are fundamental in the sciences in general and complexity sciences in particular. For instance, design has been perceived and studied as a ubiquitous activity inherent in every human activity, as the art of generating hypotheses, as a type of experiment, or as a creative co-evolutionary process. Design science and its established approaches and practices can be a great source for advancement and innovation in complexity science. These proceedings are the result of a workshop organized as part of the activities of a UK government AHRB/EPSRC funded research cluster called Embracing Complexity in Design (www.complexityanddesign.net) and the European Conference in Complex Systems (complexsystems.lri.fr)

Co-evolution of morphology and control in developing structures

The continuous need to increase the efficiency of technical systems requires the utilization of complex adaptive systems which operate in environments which are not completely predictable. Reasons are often random nature of the environment and the fact that not all phenomena which influence the performance of the system can be explained in full detail. As a consequence, the developer often gets confronted with the task to design an adaptive system with the lack of prior knowledge about the problem at hand. The design of adaptive systems, which react autonomously to changes in their environment, requires the coordinated generation of sensors, providing information about the environment, actuators which change the current state of the system and signal processing structures thereby generating suitable reactions to changed conditions. Within the scope of the thesis, the new system growth method has been introduced. It is based on the evolutionary optimization design technique, which can automatically produce the efficient systems with optimal initially non-defined configuration. The final solutions produced by the novel growth method have low dimensional perception, actuation and signal processing structures optimally adjusted to each other during combined evolutionary optimization process. The co-evolutionary system design approach has been realized by the concurrent development and gradual complexification of the sensory, actuation and corresponding signal processing systems during entire optimization. The evolution of flexible system configuration is performed with the standard evolutionary strategies by means of adaptable representation of variable length and therewith variable complexity of the system which it can represent in the further optimization progress. The co-evolution of morphology and control of complex adaptive systems has been successfully performed for the examples of a complex aerodynamic problem of a morphing wing and a virtual intelligent autonomously driving vehicle. The thesis demonstrates the applicability of the concurrent evolutionary design of the optimal morphological configuration, presented as sensory and actuation systems, and the corresponding optimal system controller. Meanwhile, it underlines the potentials of direct genotype – phenotype encodings for the design of complex engineering real-world applications. The thesis argues that often better, cheaper, more robust and adaptive systems can be developed if the entire system is the design target rather than its separate functional parts, like sensors, actuators or controller structure. The simulation results demonstrate that co-evolutionary methods are able to generate systems which can optimally adapt to the unpredicted environmental conditions while at the same time shedding light on the precise synchronization of all functional system parts during its co-developmental process

Achieving outcomes in complex public service systems: the case of the early years collaborative

Governments around the world have been increasingly adopting an ‘outcomes-focus’ in the design of policy and the management of public services, the implications of which have been subjected to increasing scrutiny within public administration (Boyne and Law 2005; Elvidge 2012; Heinrich 2002; Housden 2016; Lowe 2013; Lowe 2017; Wimbush 2011). Yet wherever an outcomes-based approach has been applied, be it within performance management (Bevan and Hood 2006; Lowe 2013; van Thiel and Leeuw 2002), budgeting (Perrin 2006; Ryan 2003), or commissioning, its achievements have fallen short of expectation (Wimbush 2011). Outcomes have predominantly been conceptualised and operationalised within what this thesis calls a ‘Rationalist’ approach, linked to the New Public Management context within which an outcomes-focus was popularised. This approach assumes we can understand the factors which drive outcomes, plan appropriate service interventions, harness the resources and commitment needed to put such interventions into practice, and manage such interventions towards their expected end points. Outcomes however are inherently complex phenomena – they are always transboundary, always co-produced by the individuals who experience them, and always impacted by a large number of unpredictable and uncontrollable factors in their external environment. Public management theory and practice finds itself at a crossroads: an imperative to improve outcomes, and a paradigmatic inability to do so – a challenge which scholarship is just beginning to respond to (Housden 2016; Lowe et al. 2016). This thesis contributes an alternative ‘Complex Systems’ theoretical framework which responds to (rather than simplifies or externalises) the inherent complexity which outcomes present. This theoretical framework draws on complex adaptive systems theory to enable a ‘Complex Systems’ approach to the management of outcomes. The framework is based on the conception of outcomes as emergent products of complex systems, and integrates three defining components of complex adaptive systems (self-organisation, distributed agentic learning, and attractor states) to enable an endogenous process of service transformation in conditions of uncertainty. This theoretical framework provides public management with more solid footing for understanding, analysing and designing outcomes-focussed interventions, with distinct advantages relative to existing outcomes-based approaches, in pursuing complex public service outcomes. The thesis applies this framework through a multiple embedded case study analysis (Yin 2009) of the Early Years Collaborative, a large-scale multi-agency Quality Improvement Collaborative operating across Scottish local authorities, as it seeks to improve a set of population-level child development outcomes

Mission Blue-Green: The Significance of Co-Creation to Promote Multifunctional Green Infrastructure within Sustainable Landscape and Urban Planning and Design in Finland

We are undeniably living in an era of enormous environmental crisis, with climate change and species extinction as its most outstanding features. These issues challenge our societal systems and relationship with nature. In addition, more than half of the planet’s population lives in urban areas, where environmental problems tend to culminate and where counter- active efforts should be concentrated.Green infrastructure (GI) is a prominent approach to solving urban environmental issues. Generally, GI can be defined as an interconnected green space network that is planned and managed for its natural resources and values and for the associated benefits to the population. Within urban settings, GI can be defined as a strategic network of planned and unplanned urban green and blue spaces that help cities meet several urban challenges by delivering ecosystem services. This emerging concept has been considered a promising framework to connect natural and semi-natural systems using spatial planning policies and practices and, thus, to promote sustainability and climate resilience.Solving complex sustainability-related problems requires inputs from various communities of knowledge. In this doctoral dissertation, the aim is to study the possibilities and potentials of co-creation to promote GI in different phases of urban and landscape planning and design. The methodological approach is action research, which has been implemented in four case studies in five Finnish cities. In all the cases, the adaptation of a scientific co-creation model has been the main approach to both 1) participating in the development process for a case site and 2) collecting data for the research. The study of co-creation-led urban development processes, including the identification of existing barriers, reveals some of the critical factors and gaps in effectively adopting the GI approach in urban planning and design. The result of the study is an accelerating model that can be used as a concrete tool to boost co-creation in the planning and design of multifunctional green infrastructures. The GI-based approach challenges planning traditions and the conventional methods we have used to envision and construct our cities. Implementing the GI-based approach and supporting the planning and design of GI elements through co-creation helps us to reorganise our actions and processes related to biophysical structures and natural processes in urban areas and to better provide desired ecosystem services. Thus, co-creation can support the use of the GI-based approach as a game-changer that facilitates regime shift to adaptive governance, enabling systemic change from existing practices to a wider socio-ecological systems approach. The co-creative processes of planning and design of GI can be used as a platform to increase both the multifunctionality of GI solu- tions and the joint understanding of urban socio-ecological systems as a basis for sustainability

Modular Coordination of Multiple Autonomic Managers

International audienceComplex computing systems are increasingly self-adaptive, with an autonomic computing approach for their administration. Real systems require the co-existence of multiple autonomic management loops, each complex to design. However their uncoordinated co-existence leads to performance degradation and possibly to inconsistency. There is a need for methodological supports facilitating the coordination of multiple autonomic managers. In this paper we propose a method focusing on the discrete control of the interactions of managers. We follow a component-based approach and explore modular discrete control, allowing to break down the combinatorial complexity inherent to the state-space exploration technique. This improves scalability of the approach and allows constructing a hierarchical control. It also allows re-using complex managers in different contexts without modifying their control specifications. We build a component-based coordination of managers, with introspection, adaptivity and reconfiguration. We validate our method on a multiple-loop multi-tier system

Qualitative process evaluation from a complex systems perspective: A systematic review and framework for public health evaluators.

BACKGROUND: Public health evaluation methods have been criticized for being overly reductionist and failing to generate suitable evidence for public health decision-making. A "complex systems approach" has been advocated to account for real world complexity. Qualitative methods may be well suited to understanding change in complex social environments, but guidance on applying a complex systems approach to inform qualitative research remains limited and underdeveloped. This systematic review aims to analyze published examples of process evaluations that utilize qualitative methods that involve a complex systems perspective and proposes a framework for qualitative complex system process evaluations. METHODS AND FINDINGS: We conducted a systematic search to identify complex system process evaluations that involve qualitative methods by searching electronic databases from January 1, 2014-September 30, 2019 (Scopus, MEDLINE, Web of Science), citation searching, and expert consultations. Process evaluations were included if they self-identified as taking a systems- or complexity-oriented approach, integrated qualitative methods, reported empirical findings, and evaluated public health interventions. Two reviewers independently assessed each study to identify concepts associated with the systems thinking and complexity science traditions. Twenty-one unique studies were identified evaluating a wide range of public health interventions in, for example, urban planning, sexual health, violence prevention, substance use, and community transformation. Evaluations were conducted in settings such as schools, workplaces, and neighborhoods in 13 different countries (9 high-income and 4 middle-income). All reported some utilization of complex systems concepts in the analysis of qualitative data. In 14 evaluations, the consideration of complex systems influenced intervention design, evaluation planning, or fieldwork. The identified studies used systems concepts to depict and describe a system at one point in time. Only 4 evaluations explicitly utilized a range of complexity concepts to assess changes within the system resulting from, or co-occurring with, intervention implementation over time. Limitations to our approach are including only English-language papers, reliance on study authors reporting their utilization of complex systems concepts, and subjective judgment from the reviewers relating to which concepts featured in each study. CONCLUSION: This study found no consensus on what bringing a complex systems perspective to public health process evaluations with qualitative methods looks like in practice and that many studies of this nature describe static systems at a single time point. We suggest future studies use a 2-phase framework for qualitative process evaluations that seek to assess changes over time from a complex systems perspective. The first phase involves producing a description of the system and identifying hypotheses about how the system may change in response to the intervention. The second phase involves following the pathway of emergent findings in an adaptive evaluation approach

Integrated regional vulnerability assessment of government services to climate change

© Emerald Group Publishing Limited. Purpose – This paper aims to describe the conduct and outcomes of an integrated assessment (IA) of the vulnerability to climate change of government service provision at regional scale in New South Wales, Australia. The assessment was co-designed with regional public sector managers to address their needs for an improved understanding of regional vulnerabilities to climate change and variability. Design/methodology/approach – The study used IA of climate change impacts through a complex adaptive systems approach incorporating social learning and stakeholder-led research processes. Workshops were conducted with stakeholders from NSW government agencies, state-owned corporations and local governments representing the tourism, water, primary industries, human settlements, emergency management, human health, infrastructure and natural landscapes sectors. Participants used regional socioeconomic profiling and climate projections to consider the impacts on and the need to adapt community service provision to future climate. Findings – Many sectors are currently experiencing difficulty coping with changes in regional demographics and structural adjustment in the economy. Climate change will result in further impacts on already vulnerable systems in the forms of resource conflicts between expanded human settlements, the infrastructure that supports them and the environment (particularly for water); increased energy costs; and declining agricultural production and food security. Originality/value – This paper describes the application of meta-analysis in climate change policy research and frames climate change as a problem of environmental pollution and an issue of development and social equity

Combining service design and discrete choice experiments for intervention design: An application to weather index insurance

In this paper we provide a detailed description of the methodological steps involved in conducting a Service Design study in combination with Discrete Choice Experiments (DCEs). It complements the conceptual and epistemological argument developed for this methodological combination in Osborne et al. (2021, World Development, in review WD-19535). Service Design for the co-creative development of policy interventions in complex adaptive systems involves an iterative process of moving between the six methodological stages of (1) problem co-definition, (2) actor-centred mapping, (3) experience-based problem diagnosis, (4) rapid prototyping, (5) design and testing and (6) upscaling. We suggest using DCEs as a quantitative method that is contextually adaptable and comparatively fast and cheap to implement, as part of stage (6) design and testing. Whilst both methods can operate independently with their own strengths and limitations, we find their combination to add value to the processes and outcomes of each. We illustrate the general methodological approach with a step-by-step description of its application to Weather Index Insurance in eastern Uganda

User involvement and value co-creation in well-being ecosystems

Purpose: This article aims to examine how users' involvement in value co-creation influences the development and orchestration of well-being ecosystems to help tackle complex societal challenges. This research contributes to the public management literature and answers recent calls to investigate novel public service governances by discussing users' involvement and value co-creation for novel well-being solutions. Design/methodology/approach: The authors empirically explore this phenomenon through a case study of a complex ecosystem addressing increased well-being, focussing on the formative evaluation stage of a longitudinal evaluation of Sweden's first support centre for people affected by cancer. Following an abductive reasoning and action research approach, the authors critically discuss the potential of user involvement for the development of well-being ecosystems and outline preconditions for the success of such approaches. Findings: The empirical results indicate that resource reconfiguration of multi-actor collaborations provides a platform for value co-creation, innovative health services and availability of resources. Common themes include the need for multi-actor collaborations to reconfigure heterogeneous resources; actors' adaptive change capabilities; the role of governance mechanisms to align the diverse well-being ecosystem components, and the engagement of essential actors. Research limitations/implications: Although using a longitudinal case study approach has revealed stimulating insights, additional data collection, multiple cases and quantitative studies are prompted. Also, the authors focus on one country but the characteristics of users' involvement for value co-creation in innovative well-being ecosystems might vary between countries. Practical implications: The findings of this study demonstrate the value of cancer-affected individuals, with “lived experiences”, acting as sources for social innovation, and drivers of well-being ecosystem development. The findings also suggest that participating actors in the ecosystem should utilise wider knowledge and experience to tackle complex societal challenges associated with well-being. Social implications: Policymakers should encourage the formation of well-being ecosystems with diverse actors and resources that can help patients navigate health challenges. The findings especially show the potential of starting from the user's needs and life situation when the ambition is to integrate and innovate in fragmented systems. Originality/value: The proposed model proposes that having a user-led focus on innovating new solutions can play an important role in the development of well-being ecosystems