Design and Policy:Current debates and future directions for research in the UK

I have a one page overview offering a perspective on design policy within a new report produced by the Design|Policy Research Network led by University of the Arts London and University of Manchester, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), showcases the significant role of design in shaping public policy and proposes an agenda for the future direction of research in the UK.The UK is a leader in the use of design in government and policy and there is a growing range of practice and research connecting design and public policymaking – such as service design, interaction design, communication design, urban design, and strategic design and the emerging fields of policy design and ‘design for policy’.Over an 18-month period, the collaborative, cross-disciplinary research network organised workshops and engagement sessions to consolidate and better articulate the emerging relations between research and practice in design and public policy processes producing a novel, evidence-based and contextual understanding of the potential for design in relation to policy. Network leads Professor Lucy Kimbell (Central Saint Martins, UAL) and Professor Liz Richardson (Department of Politics, University of Manchester) worked closely with the cross-government Policy Design Community, which includes over 75 local and central government organisations and over 500 individual members, to engage officials in the network’s activities.The organisers engaged several hundred people including policy makers in central and local government, design consultants alongside academics and doctoral students working across design and policy studies, including setting up a new LinkedIn group with over 700 members.The report outlines directions for future research and makes recommendations for those involved in research, knowledge exchange and policy ecosystems including UKRI and the Civil Service, to advance knowledge at the intersection between design and policymaking. It also includes the voices of 10 early career and established researchers whose practice and research engages across the contexts of policy making, including UAL doctoral student Daniella Jenkins (Central Saint Martins), developing feminist pensions policy, and Dr Lara Salinas (London College of Communication), who works with local government to support collaboration to address net zero.Co-authored by Professor Kimbell and Professor Richardson with Catherine Durose, Professor of Public Policy and Co-Director of the Heseltine Institute for Public Policy, Practice and Place at the University of Liverpool and Ramia Mazé, Professor of Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability at London College of Communication, this report sets out a clear vision to underpin the further development of design in government and public policy.full citation: Kimbell, L., Durose, C., Mazé, R. and Richardson, L. (2023) Design and Policy: Current Debates and Future Directions for Research in the UK: Report of the AHRC Design|Policy Research Network. London: University of the Arts LondonISBN: 978-1-3999-7069-

Design and Policy:Current debates and future directions for research in the UK

I have a one page overview offering a perspective on design policy within a new report produced by the Design|Policy Research Network led by University of the Arts London and University of Manchester, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), showcases the significant role of design in shaping public policy and proposes an agenda for the future direction of research in the UK.The UK is a leader in the use of design in government and policy and there is a growing range of practice and research connecting design and public policymaking – such as service design, interaction design, communication design, urban design, and strategic design and the emerging fields of policy design and ‘design for policy’.Over an 18-month period, the collaborative, cross-disciplinary research network organised workshops and engagement sessions to consolidate and better articulate the emerging relations between research and practice in design and public policy processes producing a novel, evidence-based and contextual understanding of the potential for design in relation to policy. Network leads Professor Lucy Kimbell (Central Saint Martins, UAL) and Professor Liz Richardson (Department of Politics, University of Manchester) worked closely with the cross-government Policy Design Community, which includes over 75 local and central government organisations and over 500 individual members, to engage officials in the network’s activities.The organisers engaged several hundred people including policy makers in central and local government, design consultants alongside academics and doctoral students working across design and policy studies, including setting up a new LinkedIn group with over 700 members.The report outlines directions for future research and makes recommendations for those involved in research, knowledge exchange and policy ecosystems including UKRI and the Civil Service, to advance knowledge at the intersection between design and policymaking. It also includes the voices of 10 early career and established researchers whose practice and research engages across the contexts of policy making, including UAL doctoral student Daniella Jenkins (Central Saint Martins), developing feminist pensions policy, and Dr Lara Salinas (London College of Communication), who works with local government to support collaboration to address net zero.Co-authored by Professor Kimbell and Professor Richardson with Catherine Durose, Professor of Public Policy and Co-Director of the Heseltine Institute for Public Policy, Practice and Place at the University of Liverpool and Ramia Mazé, Professor of Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability at London College of Communication, this report sets out a clear vision to underpin the further development of design in government and public policy.full citation: Kimbell, L., Durose, C., Mazé, R. and Richardson, L. (2023) Design and Policy: Current Debates and Future Directions for Research in the UK: Report of the AHRC Design|Policy Research Network. London: University of the Arts LondonISBN: 978-1-3999-7069-

The Strategic Role of Design in Supporting Knowledge Exchange

Within the last decade design has had a strategic role in tackling escalating environmental, social and economic problems. Through design thinking, creative methods have been applied to problem solving in a process of collaboration and designers working in new territories and knowledge domains. As the designer has moved further afield the method of Knowledge Exchange (KE) has become more recognised as a democratic approach to collaboration with the ethos that everyone has something creative and productive to offer. This paper provides reflections on early stage findings from a strategic design innovation process in which collaborative partnerships between academics, SMEs and designers emerged through KE and suggests that there is value to be had from using design strategically for not only those from a business or academic background but also for those from the design community and points to a need for more training for designers from all disciplines in how to use design strategically

Re-Mantle and Make: the role of maker spaces in empowering a new wave of circular thinking for textile designers.

This paper provides a preview of a feasibility study exploring how maker spaces might be developed in the future to support circular innovation, within the context of textiles

AHRC ProtoPublics Project Presentation - "The Dewey Organ"

The Dewey Organ: a problem and public making machine is a ‘co-design’ experiment to prototype ways of making problems and publics. The research directly addresses issues central to the funding call and critical to practice-based researchers, designers and policymakers, namely: what counts as a social ‘problem’ and what publics do problems bring into being? The interdisciplinary team approaches these core concerns by way of two key interrelated practice-based research objectives: Make the Organ with which to render issues tangible, material and debatable in new ways. Play the Organ in a context where members of publics can interact with, add or make their issues, problematize and customize problems and in doing so make their publics known or indicate new publics that arise around new issues. The machine takes its name – ‘The Dewey Organ’ – from John Dewey’s 1927 book ‘The Public and its Problems’ which critically examines civic participation, relationships between citizens and experts and the nature of expertise. The ‘Organ’ is both a device for making noise, both harmonies and discordant sounds, and of bringing people together. It also speaks of the body politic, and an anatomy of publics

The Dewey Organ Project

The Dewey Organ: a problem and public making machine is a ‘co-design’ experiment to prototype ways of making problems and publics. The research directly addresses issues central to the funding call and critical to practice-based researchers, designers and policymakers, namely: what counts as a social ‘problem’ and what publics do problems bring into being? The interdisciplinary team approaches these core concerns by way of two key interrelated practice-based research objectives: Make the Organ with which to render issues tangible, material and debatable in new ways. Play the Organ in a context where members of publics can interact with, add or make their issues, problematize and customize problems and in doing so make their publics known or indicate new publics that arise around new issues. The machine takes its name – ‘The Dewey Organ’ – from John Dewey’s 1927 book ‘The Public and its Problems’ which critically examines civic participation, relationships between citizens and experts and the nature of expertise. The ‘Organ’ is both a device for making noise, both harmonies and discordant sounds, and of bringing people together. It also speaks of the body politic, and an anatomy of publics

Resolver:Collaborative Innovation Toolbox

InGAME is the creative industries cluster for research and innovation in games and media enterprise. Its mission is to drive growth and catalyse innovation in Dundee's games cluster.InGAME builds on the city's legendary game development history, dynamic modern industry and world-class games education and talent pipeline.This toolkit offers an open-source suite of resources for others to access and build upon offering a legacy for InGAME's creative research and development programme