Social

Design
Futures
HEI Research and the AHRC

Leah Armstrong
Jocelyn Bailey
Guy Julier
Lucy Kimbell
 3

Why ‘social design’ here, now?

What is society today, in certain
parts of the world, such that
it is not unusual to think that
designers might have a role to
play in reforming society?
What is design that designers
think reformed sociality is the
outcome, if not also the means, of
what designers do?

– Cameron Tonkinwise
Director of Design Studies, Carnegie Mellon University,
‘Social Design and the Age of Neoliberalism’,
guest contribution to project blog
http://mappingsocialdesign.org
 5

Contents

Executive Summary

Section One – The Brief

1.1 The brief from AHRC: Origins, aims and objectives
1.2 Terms of reference
1.3 Research methodology
1.4 Definitions

Section Two – The Context

2.1 A brief history of socially-oriented design
2.2 The current relevance of social design research
2.3 The policy environment
2.4 ‘Social Design’: a discursive moment

Section Three – The State of Research

3.1 An overview of the findings
3.2 Relationships between HEI and non-academic research
3.3 The interplay with adjacent disciplines
3.4 Social innovation labs and policy design labs
3.5 Research funding
3.6 Collaborating with non-HEI organisations
3.7 Detailed findings

Section Four – Social Design Futures: Vision and Strategy

4.1 Vision
4.2 Strategy: building a new infrastructure
4.3 Strategy: new research themes
4.4 Strategy: interim actions

Section Five – Supporting Material

References
Appendices
1. Interviews
2. Attendance
3. Workshops
4. Speculative digital research
5. Timeline of related iniatives
6. Social design labs
7. Speculative CVs
Research team
Acknowledgements
6

Executive Summary

Social design highlights design-based

practices towards collective and social ends,
rather than predominantly commercial or
consumer-oriented objectives.
It operates across many fields of application
including local and central government, as
well as policy areas such as healthcare and
international development.
It is associated with professional designers,
students, staff and researchers in Higher
Education Institutions (HEIs) and also
promoted and practised by some public
sector bodies, funders, activists and non-
profit and commercial service providers.
Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC 7
Executive Summary

In the UK, and globally, we are currently witnessing a ‘social design’ moment. This has
emerged from the confluence of several factors including the increasing visibility of
strategic design or design thinking, social innovation and entrepreneurship, austerity
politics and policy shifts towards open or networked governance.
This presents an opportunity for the research community in design and adjacent areas,
for the Arts and Humanities Research Council, and for the UK more generally. There
are a number of reasons why it is timely for the AHRC and HEIs to think about the
development and support of social design research now. We are faced by a multitude
of large-scale complex challenges, which social design has the potential to address.
Cross-disciplinarity is a priority in research and design as a discipline has strengths in
supporting the interactions between other disciplines. Professional design is expanding
its reach, moving into new fields including government, but academic research has not
been keeping up.
Recognising the opportunity presented by social design as an emerging subject for
research, the AHRC commissioned this study in late-2013 to help with its strategy in
this area. This report presents the results of the study.
Through our study we reviewed current challenges in the field including:
– the positioning of social design research in relation to design studies and the
social sciences;
– funding mechanisms and availability in support of research;
– the relationship of HEI research to non-HEI bodies engaged directly or
indirectly in the field through research and/or practice;
– the kinds of research already undertaken;
– comparative international models;
– the historical formation of the field, current policy and other contexts and
future possibilities
– current capacity in terms of HEI strengths in social design in terms of research
initiatives, peer community and postgraduate activity.

While we have found that the UK has a real strength in social design as practice, we see
systematic weaknesses in the research landscape. We present our findings, observations
and reflections in greater detail within section four of this report. However, in summary,
we characterize the state of the research field in the UK as having more scope for
criticality and social vision. There is also an incomplete historical understanding of
8 Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC
Executive Summary

the development, reach and impact of social design. The academic research agenda is
influenced (sometimes negatively) by non-academic work in the field.
Within academia there is a lack of capacity to provide strong leadership in terms of a
mature research base, research-led teaching in design and related fields, supporting
postgraduate research students, peer-review and contributing to and collaborating
with research in related disciplines or professional fields. Research funding for social
design has been derived from a variety of sources which often results in it being more
concentrated on shorter-term projects aiming to have impact, rather than longer-term
programmes aiming to build knowledge.
Nevertheless, the social design moment presents the AHRC with an historic
opportunity to:
– fund world class, cross-disciplinary research;
– build effective pathways to impact;
– engage in tackling social problems, increasing competitiveness of the UK
economy and improving quality of life;
– influence policy practice and behaviour;
– build capacity in knowledge exchange, reframe debates and drive the
importance of design in numerous academic and civic contexts.
– forge new, hybrid research practices and specialisms with other academic
disciplines;
– enhance the role of the creative arts in their contributions to national
economic, environmental and social well-being;
– strengthen the position and practices of HEI research in design in general.

In order to suggest a route forward, we have set out a vision for where social design
research could go and a strategy for how to get there. As well as specific new research
themes, we propose a bolstering of the research ecosytem through new infrastructure
measures. These include:
– building more effective coordination between HEI and non-HEI collaborators
that ensures rigorous research content that is supported through a diverse
portfolio of funding;
– opening up the dissemination and communication of social design research to
a broad, multi-level audience;
– developing funding application processes to be able to incorporate the more
flexible nature of social design research practices while ensuring their rigour
and criticality.
– developing a strategy to build capacity through training and curriculum
research.
Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC 9
Executive Summary

To conclude, social design is at a critical point. Strong growth in student demand,

professional practice and interest among non-HEI stakeholders has meant that practice
has outstripped research capacity. Further, government interest in the potential
of design-based approaches to sit within policy-making and implementation puts
pressure on it to perform successfully. This presents the AHRC with the challenge - and
opportunity - of mediating between the urgent requirement to build a strong research
base while attending to the enormous potential to create positive social impact through
knowledge transfer and via co- creating new solutions to address contemporary issues.
10

Section One

The Brief

In the summer of 2013, the Arts and

Humanities Research Council, recognising
the opportunity presented by social
design as an emerging subject for research,
commissioned this mapping study to
inform its strategy in this area.
Section One presents the background to
the study: the brief from AHRC, our terms
of reference, and our methodology and
definitions.
Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC 11
1– The Brief

1.1 –
The brief from AHRC: origins, aims and objectives
This report is, in the first instance, intended to inform the Arts and Humanities
Research Council (AHRC). It was commissioned by the AHRC to review social design
research and practice in the UK and to help guide its future strategy in this area.
Its primary focus is on academic research in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs),
although research collaboration with other bodies is understood to be of importance.
The research evolved out of earlier collaborations between members of the team and
AHRC. From March 2012, the research team ran Social Design Talks, a monthly series
of events created to open up critical debate in the context of social design’s rapid
ascendance (see http://socialdesigntalks.org). In 2012-13, research team members
worked on the Design Commission parliamentary inquiry into re-designing public
services (Design Commission 2013), which the AHRC sponsored.
Research for this current report took place between November 2013 and July
2014 under the title ‘Mapping Social Design: Research and Practice’ (see http://
mappingsocialdesign.org). The research set out to:
1. Critically review HEI and non-HEI research and practice relating to social
design in the UK and internationally;
2. Understand developments in the economic, social and political contexts that
have shaped social design;
3. Produce recommendations and speculations on future research strategies,
programmes and practices for the AHRC;
4. Raise awareness of issues, challenges and potentials for social design amongst
UK researchers.

Our agreed objectives included the following:

1. Through interviews, visits, deskwork and workshops, to identify the key actors
and practices in social design and understand the particular challenges and
opportunities for HEI social design research;
2. Through the evaluation digital-based speculative research and expert
workshops, create future social design research and practice scenarios that
propose new research possibilities;
3. Through the maintenance of the Social Design Talks programme, participation
in conferences and symposia, publication and presentation, build academic
awareness and debate in this area;
4. Report findings and recommendations to the AHRC and a wider academic
audience.
12 Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC
1– The Brief

1.2 –
Terms of Reference
The research did not set out to produce an exhaustive audit of all research and practice
activities relating to social design. As this report reflects, we have aimed to critically
understand the key challenges and questions for research across a broad range of
activities connected with the term social design. The emphasis is on research but this
involves considering related practices in education, the design profession, non-HEI
institutions and bodies, and local and national government policy-making.
The report does not propose specific research projects or specific educational
programmes to build academic capacity. It does not make recommendations for the
design industry or for non-HEI design-related organisations. These lie outside its remit.
The focus of its recommendations is on building a sustainable research environment for
social design and identifying some emerging themes that may work within this. While
international comparisons are made, the report is intended to inform strategy in the
UK, not elsewhere.

1.3 –
Research Methodology
The approach to this research project is based in an abductive logic (Blaikie 2002).
It involved exploring the everyday language and activities used in the production,
reproduction and interpretation of social design. This was an iterative process that
involved the team in accessing and interpreting others’ and our own accounts of social
design practice and research. The research approach also recognized the team’s roles
in participating in and constructing the field through our blogging and events and
through attending others’ events.
Because of the huge diversity of sites and activities associated with social design and
the lack of published academic research in the area, the team employed a variety of
methods that reviewed past research and current practice, explored existing issues
and developed speculations about future scenarios. This approach allowed the team
to engage with a variety of actors and practices associated with the object of study,
both accounts given in interviews as well as those that exist in academic and non-HEI
published research.
Research materials such as notes from interviews and reviewing literature were shared
between the team via a digital drive. Regular team meetings were used to discuss
and synthesize findings. Work-in-progress presentations were given at the V&A, the
University of Brighton and the University of Southern Denmark in order to give a more
public platform to the findings and to get early feedback from colleagues.
The team maintained a project blog (http://mappingsocialdesign.org) which
contributed reflections on emergent issues and invited guest blogs and comments and
was publicised via Twitter. Through the course of the research the team continued
to run the Social Design Talks (http://socialdesigntalks.org) as a public forum for the
discussion of this topic. In the final month of the research, a public presentation of the
research was made at the V&A, to garner further responses and publicize the research.
An Advisory Group was established to help provide critical oversight (see Appendix 3).
Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC 13
1– The Brief

Method Outline Details

Deskwork Review of academic and grey literature

Interviews 44 personal interviews of key academics or List of interviewees

practitioners averaging 60 minutes by phone, Appendix 1
Skype or face-to-face.

Visits and attendance Team members attended and participated in 12 List of visits
conferences, symposia and other research events. Appendix 2

Practitioner workshop Half-day workshop with representatives of UK key List of workshop participants
consultancies who are working. This explored their Appendix 3
relationship to academic research.

Expert workshop Full-day workshop with project Advisory Group List of workshop participants
and additional invitees. Participants were able to Appendix 3 and project blog
critique interim project findings and develop future http://mappingsocialdesign.org
research scenarios.

Speculative design We commissioned 10 art and design practitioners Appendix 4 and project blog
brief and academics from the UK, Turkey, China, Norway, http://mappingsocialdesign.org
Finland, and the USA to respond to a simple design
brief to uncover unusual and provocative lines of
enquiry for social design, which we published on
the project blog.
14 Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC
1– The Brief

The research process was structured into two main parts:

– review and critical analysis of past and current research and practices;
– speculation on future requirements and research activities.
The diagram below gives an overview of the how the different methods were employed
during the project.

Nov 2013
REVIEW

Deskwork Interviews Visits Practitioner Workshop

Interim findings and proposals

Critical reflection and analysis (1)

SPECULATION

Speculative Brief Expert Workshop

Critical reflection and analysis (2)

FINDINGS AND PROPOSALS

July 2014
 15

1.4–
Definitions
Social design is a set of concepts and activities that exist across many fields of
application including local and central government and policy areas such as healthcare
and international development. It is associated with professional designers, students,
staff and researchers in design HEIs and also promoted and practiced by some public
sector bodies, funders, activists and non-profit and commercial service providers.
Although all designing can be understood as social, the term ‘social design’ highlights
the concepts and activities enacted within participatory approaches to researching,
generating and realising new ways to make change happen towards collective and
social ends, rather than predominantly commercial objectives.
Social design can therefore be understood to encompass a broad set of motivations,
approaches audiences and impacts. For instance, these may be embedded within
government policies or public services extremely critical of and divergent from these.
Social design may be carried out by people who think of themselves as designers or
who studied at design schools, or it might be an activity of designing that takes place
involving people who are not professional designers. Arts practice, crafts, theatre and
performance are also sites where social design activities take place.
16

Section Two

The Context

Section Two discusses the context

within which the team made this study:
the history of socially-oriented design,
the reasons for its relevance today, the
particularities and influence of the policy
environment in the UK and its nature as a
‘discursive moment’.
Throughout Section Two and Section Three
we highlight pertinent findings towards
the end of each sub-section. These are then
explained further in the recommendations
in Section Four.
Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC 17
2– The Context

2.1 –
A brief history of socially-oriented design
Social design as a term has only surfaced into frequent usage in the last decade.
However, this is not to say that in the longer history of design that designers have been
exclusively interested in its commercial outputs.
Nineteenth century design reformers in the UK -- such as William Morris, John Ruskin
and Christopher Dresser -- were concerned with improving the quality of objects that
were being manufactured, public consciousness as to the quality of their design and
the wider social conditions resulting from industrialisation (Dutta 2009).
The social role of design in the UK received particular impetus in the 1940s and 50s
in the context of post-war reconstruction and Attlee’s Welfare State. Work by studios
and consultancies including the Design Research Unit (DRU) aimed to maximize the
civic benefits of design alongside the burgeoning commercial potential of design as an
emergent profession.
The radical social revolutions of the 1960s were followed by economic recession in
the 1970s. The combination of these gave way to a global movement that proposed
alternatives to mainstream, consumerist living. The roll-call of figureheads associated
with this period is impressive. These pioneers include Jane Jacobs (urban activism),
Victor Papanek (socially responsible design), Bill Mollison (permaculture food growing
systems), E.F. Schumacher (re- localisation and appropriate technology) and Ralph
Erskine (community architecture). The Italian anti-design movement of the same era
also instigated a lineage that fed through to the innovative thinking of Ezio Manzini
who has consistently championed design for social innovation and sustainability.
Such luminaries are frequently cited in historical treatments of social design (e.g.
Whitely 1994). However, given that social design and design activism are often
carried out at grassroots, localised levels, there are also many practitioners who have
remained below the radar but have made significant contributions to the field. These
might include the urban activist, Dennis Livingston in Baltimore or the community
architect, Eddy Walker in Leeds.
The history of social design shows that its formation has come through varied
circumstances and exemplifies a range of approaches and political positions. It is
notable, however, that it has received increased impetus at times of economic and
social challenge such as austerity Britain of the post-war period and the oil crisis of
the 1970s. Now we see social design re- emerging against the background of the 2008
financial crisis and recession.
18 Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC
2– The Context

Finding
Social design has deep historical roots. What is known about this history has tended
to be folded into accounts of design history in which its pioneers are understood
within mainstream accounts. However, social design invariably involves non-expert
practitioners, close alliances with non-design fields, entanglement with policy
bureaucracies or, conversely, below-the-radar, grassroots action. There remains
much to be researched and analysed in its historical background.
Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC 19
2– The Context

In this field, there is a need for

long-term infrastructuring where
relationships continue…
that is, that a social design
project instigates a conversation
and relationships that can be
on-going beyond the ‘life’ of the
project itself.
But that also makes the impact
of social design very difficult to
evaluate.
– Pelle Ehn
Professor of Interaction Design, Medea, Malmö University
Interview, 22 November 2013
20 Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC
2– The Context

2.2 –
The Current Relevance of Social Design Research
There are a number of reasons why it is timely for the AHRC and HEIs to think about
the development and support of social design research now.
1. Society currently faces extensive large-scale complex challenges, which social
design is suited to addressing. The challenges of climate change, migration,
ageing populations, chronic disease, wealth disparities, and pressures on public
sector finances require smarter and more agile responses to how problems and
opportunities are identified and framed, and how new solutions are generated,
explored, prototyped, resourced and realised. There is growing awareness of
the impact of designing and of design work in understanding and framing
problems and finding solutions in collaboration with communities, impacting
on societies and the wider environment. Additionally, research in design
studies has highlighted the negative designers make in contributing to some of
these issues in the first place, especially consumer culture, climate change and
sustainability (e.g. Fry 2011). Despite the claim that designers have the potential
to address these issues, the question remains as to whether they are adequately
equipped to deal with them (Nussbaum et al 2010, Kiem 2013, Miller 2013).
2. Cross-disciplinarity is a priority now in research and design as a discipline
has strengths in promoting interactions between other disciplines. Despite
frequent calls for cross-disciplinary working in research and in organisational
projects, how collaboration can best take place remains unclear. Design-
oriented research can provide a bond between a number of fields, including
policy and planning, community development, sociology, anthropology, human
geography, and development studies. Design’s material practices make the
knowledge and contributions of other fields actual and observable. Buchanan
(1992) argued that designers have a ‘quasi subject matter’ because they work
with the particular and specific, rather than the general. As a kind of ‘glue’
(Kelley and Van Patter 2005), design practices bring issues and their publics
into view (Marres 2005) and manifest and hold together a social world. Design
consultants act as knowledge brokers between different fields of knowledge
(Hargadon and Sutton 1997).
3. Design is operating in an expanded field and research has not been keeping
up. Design expertise is being promoted as a vital contribution to addressing
social and public challenges by governments, commercial consultancies, design
associations, development organisations and HEIs across the world. Partly
associated with the term ‘design thinking’ (Kimbell 2011a, Kimbell 2012), this
rests on a view of design operating within an expanding field, as well as specific
new fields such as interaction design and service design (Meroni and Sangiorgi
2011, Kimbell 2011b). Further there is strong undergraduate and postgraduate
design student demand for engaging with public and collective issues, which is
not being met by current academic resources. Design research has historically
focused more on its technological or commercial applications emphasising the
production of traditional design objects. Social design incorporates broader,
more strategic considerations. It draws in the full range of design specialisms
Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC 21
2– The Context

and combines these with the deep understanding and analysis that exist in
other areas such as ageing, healthcare, social welfare or policy and planning.
Social design therefore opens up innovative ways of doing research and
generating new knowledge.

Addressing large-scale
complex challenges
for example:
• climate change
• migration
• ageing
• public sector finance
• governance and inclusion

An expanded field of design Cross-disciplinarity

• thematically-expert • design as bond between
design research specialisms for example:
• new ‘objects’ of design - policy and planning
for example: - community development
- policies - social sciences
strategies
- behaviours

Finding
The interplay of these domains provides the AHRC with a timely opportunity to:
– fund world class, cross-disciplinary research;
– build effective pathways to impact;
– engage in tackling social problems, increasing competitiveness of the UK
economy, improving the quality of life;
– influence policy practice and behaviour;
– build capacity in knowledge exchange, reframe debates and drive the importance
of design in numerous academic and civic contexts.
22 Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC
2– The Context

I have always thought that

policy lags behind practice and
so I want to make the case for
practice-led socially responsive
design research experimentation
with communities as to what
works – and evidencing that.

– Lorraine Gamman, Professor of Product and Spatial Design,

Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts,
‘Social Design Rant 1’, guest contribution to project blog,
http://mappingsocialdesign.org, June 2014
Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC 23
2– The Context

2.3 –
The Policy Environment
The rise of social design - both practice and research - is, in no small part, attributable
to a number of policy shifts shaping the public sector over the last three decades. These
have been taking place in the UK, Australasia and to varying degrees across Europe and
the Americas. Five key drivers figure here.
1. New Public Management (NPM) approaches in central and local government
developed from the 1980s. This involved a shift toward more entrepreneurial
management, explicit standards and measurement of performance, an
emphasis on output controls, decentralisation of services, the promotion
of competition, a stress on private sector styles of management and the
disciplining of resource allocation (Osborne and McLaughlin 2002, Du Gay
2004). The result of this has been an emphasis on achieving ‘best value’ through
the outsourcing of services to private providers and NGOs. Further, it produced
a decentralization or fragmentation of public service delivery. By and large,
design has operated in service mode here, for example helping achieve cost-
savings or service improvements, rather than providing any strategic leadership.
2. Network Governance (NG) is where governmental institutions work in a more
coordinating capacity of services and of the public, rather than through the
market mechanisms of NPM (Hartley 2005). This is expected to resolve tensions
between centralization and decentralisation. Typically, central government
also releases resources for experimentation and collaboration to orchestrate
the interests of different stakeholders. Policy creation and its implementation
is not necessarily undertaken either through stratified bureaucratic systems of
public administration or within the entrepreneurially-driven and consumer-
responsive context of the New Public Management. Instead, programmes are
coordinated rather than managed. Socially-oriented consultancies such as
FutureGov have been engaged in designing services that facilitate coordination
and public responsiveness in this context.
3. Austerity measures have had a profound effect on the relationship of social
design to policy. The radical cutting of public sector budgets across Europe
has forced local, regional and national governments to rethink the way their
services are delivered. Alongside this the development of ‘lean’ approaches to
management, entrepreneurship and even user experiences has also prompted
new ways of organizing to create and deliver services. One result of this has
been the growth of Outcome Based Budgeting (OBB) or Outcome Based
Commissioning (OBC). These place the chief focus on achieving the desired
results of a service rather than micro- managing the bureaucracies running
the services themselves. This has led to the innovation of systems that blend
individual volunteers and support networks (whether NGO or governmental)
to ‘co-produce’ services aimed at addressing policy issues. The consultancy
Participle, for example, has been active in this respect, designing systems for
mutual support for the elderly. The harnessing of active citizens into such
solutions resonates with the Big Society agenda that was promoted early on in
the Coalition government (Blyth and Kimbell 2011).
24 Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC
2– The Context

4. Nudge and Behaviour Change is perhaps an exception where policy aspirations

have directly shaped the design of services, especially digital services. To
address welfare and environmental challenges, government policy has strongly
supported a behavioural psychology approach derived, in part, from Thaler and
Sunstein (2009) (see also Dolan et al. 2010). The idea is that creating ‘choice
architectures’ will positively influence the ways that people make decisions in
their everyday lives relating, for example, to their health. As such, it has been
seen as a transfer of mainstream market mechanisms to the policy and social
sphere (Leggett 2014, Muniesa 2014). Social scientists working within other
traditions (e.g. Shove 2010) have pointed out that the behavioural approach
runs the risk of policy and the design of public services being limited to one
framing of how social change happens, neglecting other research resources.
5. Big Data and Open Data are emergent areas that result from a convergence
of technological, commercial and management developments. Investment in
storage capacities, abilities to process vast quantities of digital data, pervasive
data collection through the internet of things and mobile broadband have been
accompanied by new service and business models that capture, analyse and
combine data in new ways. The term ‘open’ data highlights the opportunities
that are thought to come from organisations, especially government and public
bodies, publishing their data for others to use which may be recombined
into new services and ventures and drive accountability, transparency and
responsiveness (Verhulst et al 2014). The UK’s open data service includes
datasets created by UK public bodies for use by others that cover things
such as healthcare, live traffic data, social deprivation indices, water and air
temperatures, flood levels, and government spending. Over 300 apps that use
government datasets were listed on the data.gov.uk website in early 2014. Social
design research also has the potential to connect up with these emergent
activities, particularly in relation to thinking around smart cities and health
and social care.
Academic research from the social sciences into these five areas has been extensive.
For example, NG or ‘digital governance’ has been regarded by some as containing
emancipatory potential for citizens by fostering more responsive, coordinated and
democratic modes of governance and citizenship (e.g. Dunleavy 2013, Muir 2014).
Developments such as nudge and big data are also closely intertwined with strands of
social scientific research. In contrast, research within design traditions such as design
studies and design history has barely begun to discuss what designing in such contexts
might mean for how design is understood, practised, studied and taught.
This neglect of design in the context of these policy developments is striking for two
reasons. First, there is at least a decade of designerly approaches and professional
designers being deployed in relation to complex policy issues. Second, policy is an area
of collective life where it is noticeable how little attention is given to how policies come
into being – or put another way, how they are designed. For example, new models of
governance and public sector management are often expressed as aspirations with little
empirical evidence or testing of their operational impact. The systemic and material
details of how a new policy might work when implemented – its design – is absent
(Bason 2010). Further, the design activities, processes, knowledge and skills through
which new policies come into being are rarely explored.
Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC 25
2– The Context

Finding
The current policy landscape opens up historic opportunities for HEIs and the
AHRC to build impactful practices through social design research. With its
orientation towards and grounding in practice, design research can engage with
many other academic disciplines to produce new disciplinary fields and forms of
collaboration.
26 Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC
2– The Context

2.4 –
‘Social Design’: a Discursive Moment
The term social design - which has entered into more frequent use in the past 10 years
- has come into view through the confluence of several factors. As well as new policy
environments (such as austerity politics and policy shifts towards open or networked
governance), these include the increased visibility of strategic design or ‘design
thinking’, social innovation and entrepreneurship, the development and usage of
digital and mobile technologies, and the rise of activist practices in the face of global
challenges such as climate change and economic inequalities. These historically-specific
factors have shaped current usage of the term.
Seeing the emergence of social design as a discursive moment, rather than a field or
discipline, allows recognition of the variety of knowledge, understandings, identities
and practices associated with the term. Social design is not well-defined or fixed in
its processes and outcomes. Indeed, it will most likely disaggregate into new modes
of practice and new specialisms that cannot be predicted. As the contextual factors
that led to the emergence of the term change, so too will the practices and formations
associated with social design. The consolidation of a maturing research agenda presents
an opportunity to influence this development in positive ways.
For a timeline that illustrates initiatives relevant to social design that have taken place
through conferences, networks and seminars, university courses and research networks,
policy initiatives and design consultancies, 2005-13, see Appendix 5.

Austerity
Outsourcing
Big Data
Digitization
Open Gov.
Design Thinking
Activism
SOCIAL DESIGN
Localism
Customer Experience
Public Sector Service Design
Generation ‘Millenials’
Social Innovation
Social Entrepreneurship
 27

2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014

Austerity

Outsourcing

Big Data

Digitization

Open Gov.

Localism

Activism

Generation ‘Millenials’

Design Thinking

Public Sector Service Design

Customer Experience

Social Innovation

Social Entrepreneurship
28 Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC
2– The Context

Political scientists for the last

20 years have been dreaming
of finding new models that
move away from new public
management... the opportunity
of design is that it’s probably
our best shot at systematically
discovering new governance
approaches.

– Christian Bason, Head of MindLab, Copenhagen at

‘EHDM Encouraging Design Driven Public Sector Innovation’,
Copenhagen, 15 May 2014.
Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC 29
2– The Context

Three Distinctive Accounts of Social Design in HEIs

Within this ‘discursive moment’ and within HEI activities, a range of approaches to
social design are have become discernible. Arguably, the most distinctive are as follows.
1. Design for Social Innovation involves expert design contributions that help
to identify, support and develop opportunities for amplifying changing
social practices (Jégou and Manzini 2008). It includes working closely with
participants to explore everyday activities and outlooks, and to develop design
responses through prototyping, implementation and evaluation.
2. Socially Responsive Design is less programmatic in its methods than design
for social innovation. Here, the axes of the ‘T-shaped’ designer -- who has a
breadth of understanding of different related fields and a deep knowledge of
the technical and processual elements of design -- are reversed. Instead, they
are experts in particular knowledge domains -- such as health, crime or local
government -- but bring a designerly understanding to them (Gamman and
Thorpe 2011).
3. Design Activism is more explicit in its political intentions than the two
previous categories. It includes the creation of artefacts and experiences
associated with political discussion and protest, but also results in designs that
intervene into everyday lives while raising political consciousness concerning
collective challenges (Markusson 2013, Julier 2013). It usually sits outside
commercial or governmental structures and works through settings such as
grassroots activities, community action or pressure groups.

Finding
The current policy landscape opens up historic opportunities for HEIs and the
AHRC to build impactful practices through social design research. With its
orientation towards and grounding in practice, design research can engage with
many other academic disciplines to produce new disciplinary fields and forms of
collaboration.
30

Section Three

The state of research

In this section we discuss our conclusions

about the state of social design research
in its current instantiation. After a brief
introductory overview of some of the
main issues, we look in more depth at
the relationships between HEI and non-
academic research which have shaped
the field to date, the interplay of social
design with adjacent ‘social’ disciplines,
the nature and role of social innovation
labs and an assessment of research funding
and collaborations. We conclude with an
holistic cataloguing of the challenges facing
social design research. Section Four follows
with our suggested responses to some of
those challenges.
Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC 31
3– The state of research

3.1 –
‘Social Design’: a Discursive Moment
Here we present an overview of the main concerns around social design research and
the opportunities that lie ahead for it.
1. There is an incomplete historical understanding of the development, reach and
impact of social design.
2. Social design has emerged as a discursive moment resulting from the
confluence of several factors including the increasing visibility of strategic
design or design thinking, social innovation and entrepreneurship, austerity
politics and policy shifts towards open or networked governance. However,
in order for the field to mature there needs to be a greater engagement with
adjacent fields, especially in the realm of ‘the social’ as well as specific areas of
knowledge such as healthcare, governance and social enterprise.
3. The academic research agenda is influenced (sometimes negatively) by non-
academic work in the field.
4. There is a lack of capacity in UK academia to provide strong leadership in terms
of a mature research base, research-led teaching in design and related fields,
supporting postgraduate research students, peer-review and contributing to
and collaborating with research in related disciplines or professional fields.
5. Research funding for social design has been derived from a variety of sources
which often results in research being concentrated on shorter-term projects
aiming to have impact, rather than longer-term programmes aiming to build
knowledge.
6. Nonetheless, social design research presents an important opportunity for the
AHRC to:
a) forge new, hybrid research practices and specialisms with other academic
disciplines;
b) enhance the role of the creative arts in their contributions to national
economic, environmental and social well-being;
c) strengthen the position and practices of HEI research in design in general.
32 Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC
3– The state of research

3.2 –
Relationships between HEI and non-Academic Research
Academic research relating to social design has been prefigured in the UK by a
significant amount of research and policy work and other initiatives by non-HEI bodies.
Indicative examples are given below.

Organisation Dates Initiative

Design Council early 1990s Greater emphasis on advisory role to government

2005-06 RED unit
late 2000s-to present Design Challenges with NHS Trusts, Local Authorities
2007 Designs of the Times (DOTT) Northumbria*
2009 DOTT Cornwall
2012 ‘Scoping Study on Service Design’ (report)*
2013 ‘Design for Public Good’ (report)

Department for
Education and
Schools 2002 Innovation Unit

Nesta 2002 Futurelab

2009 Innovation Lab
2013 Centre for Social Action

Royal Society of 2003 RSA Student Design Awards switch to explicit social agenda
the Arts
2009 ‘Design for Rehabilitation’ (report)

Policy Connect 2012 Design Commission ‘Re-Starting Britain 2: Design and Public
Services’ (report)*

Cabinet Office 2010 Behavioural Insights Team

2011 Government Digital Service
2013 Open Policy Making Team
2014 Policy Lab (one year initiative) *
Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC 33
3– The state of research

There are many weak and strong ties linking these public or policy-based organization
and initiatives, HEIs and other organisations.
- There are informal links between public bodies, HEIs and a cluster of public-
service- oriented consultancies and enterprises such as FutureGov, Innovation
Unit, Participle, Redfront, Sea Communications, Snook, STBY, UsCreates, as well
as other design consultancies.
- Research is sometimes funded as part of consultancy for example resulting in
project reports or impact reports.
- Some of the staff and consultants working in relation to social design have
undertaken post-graduate study including doctoral work. Many maintain
close ties with HEIs through part-time teaching and collaborations with
undergraduate or postgraduate design courses.
- Many of the individuals working in social design have also been active with the
non- HEI bodies discussed above, taking part in workshops, events, or joining
steering groups such as the Design Council Public Services Action Group.

Arguably, this has led to a closed loop between this consultancy sector, non-HEI bodies
and some university activities in which particular research assumptions, approaches
and methods are reproduced. Research is carried out over relatively short-term periods.
This research is not subject to the rigours of HEI application processes, peer-review,
or academic assessment of its outcomes. Additionally the aim of this research is not
usually to contribute to academic knowledge, so the resulting findings rarely make
a contribution to existing literature. Distribution through online channels and other
publication routes make this grey literature very accessible. Meanwhile, its approaches,
methods and analysis remain unchallenged.

Non-HEI Organisiations

Public services oriented University design

consultancies and enterprises departments
34 Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC
3– The state of research

Finding
The current policy landscape opens up historic opportunities for HEIs and the
AHRC to build impactful practices through social design research. With its
orientation towards and grounding in practice, design research can engage with
many other academic disciplines to produce new disciplinary fields and forms of
collaboration.
Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC 35
3– The state of research

... Although, strictly speaking, (social)

refers to the ties between people and to
the organisational forms that characterize
a society, it is very frequently used
to connote particularly problematic
situations, such as extreme poverty,
illness or exclusion, and circumstances
after catastrophic events.
In other words, when used in this way,
‘social’ becomes a synonym for ‘highly
problematic condition’, which poses
(or should pose) the need for urgent
intervention, outside normal market or
public service modalities.
It is precisely in this acceptation that
the term ‘social’ made its entrance into
the design debate several decades ago,
generating the term: social design.
– Ezio Manzini, Professor Design and Innovation for Sustainability,
Politecnico di Milano, ‘Design for social innovation vs. social
design’, guest contribution to project blog
http://mappingsocialdesign.org
36 Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC
3– The state of research

3.3 –
The interplay with adjacent disciplines
The difficulty of defining design is a long-standing problem in design research.
Similarly in social theory, there are multiple accounts of how the social can be
conceptualised and described. It can exist at various scales and locations, can involve
different kinds of entity or actor, and can represent differing forms of association,
interest and action. To illuminate the emergence of social design, it is productive to
turn briefly to two related areas: discussions of social entrepreneurship and social
innovation on the one hand, and recent work in sociology on the other. Through this,
we can appreciate what is distinctive about a ‘social’ version of design.

Social entrepreneurship and social innovation

In their review of ways of defining social entrepreneurship, Roger Martin and Sally
Osberg (2007) clarify how social entrepreneurship is distinct from other areas of
practice relating to social purposes, in particular the provision of social services
and activism, and from other kinds of entrepreneurship. They highlight the agency
entrepreneurs bring to an issue in which they see other actors as unable to do things for
themselves. They argue that:
...the social entrepreneur aims for value in the form of large-scale,
transformational benefit that accrues to either a significant segment of society
or to society at large ... the social entrepreneur’s value proposition targets an
underserved, neglected or highly disadvantaged population that lacks the
financial means or political clout to achieve the transformational benefit on its
own (Martin and Osberg 2007: 34-35).
By contrast, an influential effort at defining social innovation by Geoff Mulgan and
colleagues at the Young Foundation emphasizes societies’ own capacities to solve their
problems, rather than needing entrepreneurs to do it for them. For Mulgan et al, social
innovation is simply ‘new ideas that work to meet pressing unmet needs and improve
peoples’ lives’ (Mulgan et al 2007:4). Instead of the heroic, well-meaning entrepreneur,
here social groups themselves have ‘ubiquitous intelligence’ that can be mobilized. A
second distinctive aspect of Mulgan et al’s definition is that:
...social innovations ... leave behind compelling new social relationships between
previously separate individuals and groups which matter greatly to the people
involved, contribute to the diffusion and embedding of the innovation, and fuel a
cumulative dynamic whereby each innovation opens up the possibility of further
innovations (Mulgan et al 2007: 5).
Despite these differences, where these definitions of social entrepreneurship and social
innovation overlap is in:
a) the intention to work at a holistic, systemic level;
b) by creating new combinations of resources in the generation of new solutions
to social issues.
Both sets of authors cite early twentieth century economist Joseph Schumpeter, who
described entrepreneurship as creative destruction. For example Martin and Osberg see
Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC 37
3– The state of research

social entrepreneurs as:

...forging a new, stable equilibrium that releases trapped potential or alleviates
the suffering of the targeted group, and through imitation and the creation of a
stable ecosystem around the new equilibrium ensuring a better future for the
targeted group and even society at large (Martin and Osberg 2007: 35).

For Mulgan et al, ‘social innovations are usually new combinations or hybrids of
existing elements, rather than being wholly new in themselves’ (Mulgan et al 2007: 34).
These discussions about social entrepreneurship and social innovation are useful to
understanding social design, in particular:
– questioning who has agency in articulating issues or opportunities and doing
something to address them – entrepreneurs v members of a social group v
experts v outsiders;
– seeing the process of designing and making change happen as distributed and
involving many participants, in particular the people affected by an issue;
– operating across boundaries between organizations and sectors;
– involving the creation of new combinations of resources and making new
connections between actors and resources in a social world;
– recognising that people’s needs are not given and pre-existing, but that they
result from complex interactions between actors and processes in a social
world.

Recent work in sociology

Sociological research over the past two decades, stemming from Science and Technology
Studies/Actor-Network Theory, has re-invigorated discussions about how the social
is constituted, for example through the object turn in social research. Marres (2014)
talks of ‘old’ and ‘new’ conceptions of the social. ‘Old’ conceptions of the social might
incorporate more stable usages (as in social housing or social welfare). More recently,
there has been a rise of a ‘new’ form of the social (as in social media, social marketing,
social innovation, social enterprise, etc.) that disrupts any feeling of stability around the
term. Here, the social is not necessarily taken as a given but may, at times, be ephemeral
and performative.
Further, new accounts of the social foreground the role of non-human actors such as
digital devices in constituting the social (Marres 2012). These accounts suggest the
possibility of design playing an important role in producing emergent social worlds.

Finding
Research and practice within design fields can bring into view and instantiate these
distinct versions of ‘the social’. In terms of the AHRC, such fundamental questions
may take social design research more closely into the orbit of the social sciences and
open up opportunities for further partnerships with the ESRC.
38 Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC
3– The state of research

3.4 –
Social Innovation Labs and Policy Design Labs
One area that seems to offer particular opportunities to understand and practice social
design is in policy and social innovation labs. There has been a significant growth over
the past decade in government sponsorship of policy labs. Geoff Mulgan (2014) defines
these as enabling ‘experimentation in a safe space at one remove from everyday reality,
with the goal of generating useful ideas that address social needs and demonstrating
their effectiveness’.
Although such labs take many forms, they share an orientation to practical action
that develops, explores and tests new approaches to generating and delivering policy.
Some explicitly involve the use of design methods or design thinking to develop policy
and also train policy-makers and functionaries in this approach. A summary of the
international spread of such labs is given in Appendix 6.
Many of the labs have existed or are currently operating work at national or regional
levels. Some, such as Denmark’s MindLab and the new UK Cabinet Office Policy Lab, are
based in central government. Ben Williamson (2014) notes how
Policy labs are part of a shift to more ‘mobile’ forms of governance in which policy
ideas are generated and mobilized by a more diverse range of governmental and
non-governmental settings, and moved around and shared across geographical
sites and cross-sectoral networks, much of it mediated through software
technologies.

Efforts to understand labs include:

- analysis that segments them by specialism (for example design-focussed,
psychology-based or technology-based); or by sector (for example healthcare
or education) or by their likelihood of leading to systemic change (see Mulgan
2014);
- analysis that segments them by whether they are government-led or
government-enabled and whether government’s roles are funding or being a
client, and a variety of activities from capacity building to advising (see ‘Gov
Innovation Labs Constellation 1.0’, Parsons The New School for Design 2013).

Such labs present new and unique opportunities to understand the intersection of
design and public policy. However their heterogeneity means that they do not map
easily or directly onto academic research for the following reasons.
1. Embedded within political and governance contexts, such labs are oriented
towards impact rather than producing academic knowledge.
2. They operate at very different scales, some addressing individual cities,
government departments or specific policy areas, making comparison difficult.
3. Their rapid design and implementation cycles do not fit the temporalities of
academic research easily.
Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC 39
3– The state of research

These difficulties can be addressed by careful research design and they do not preclude
academic researchers partnering or collaborating with these kinds of labs.

Finding
These labs demonstrate the growing interest in and hopes for bringing design
practice, the social sciences and policy-making together. Yet, they are very recent
and in some cases, short-lived. Their impact over the longer-term is still to be
evaluated and understood, as is their relationship to academic research.
40 Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC
3– The state of research

3.5 –
Research Funding
Academic research in social design has been supported through a variety of channels
including from RCUK, EU and non-academic sources. The main activities that have
taken shape in relation to social design have been within design departments of
HEIs. Although there have been projects that involve collaboration across academic
disciplines, the expertise in social design research in UK HEIs is dominated by
individuals or small teams in design-based institutions.

Knowledge Exchange Projects Knowledge Exchange Hubs

Collaborative Arts Triple Helix Creative Exchange

University of Birmingham Universities of Lancaster,
Newcastle and RCA

Stories of User Appropriation Design in Action

Brunel University Jordanstone College of Art and Design,
Glasgow School of Art, University
Creative Economy, Digital of Abertay, Robert gordon University
Technology and Innovation and Grays College of Art
University of Cambridge
Creative Works
Supporting Creative Business London
University of Glasgow
Research Expertise in Arts
and Creative Technology (REACT)
Northumbrian Exchanges AHRC Funding Strategies Universitites of West England, Bath,
University of Newcastle and Priorities 2013 Bristol, Cardiff and Exeter
Themes: Connected Communities;
Care for the Future; Digital Transformations;
Archives, Assets and Audiences Translatin Cultures; Science in Culture
University of Nottingham

Home Improvements
University of Sheffield

Design with Heritage

University College London Partnerships

Creative Exchange Lab

University of Ulster EPSRC Designing for 21 Century

FIREup Design Council/Capita

University of the Arts, London

Media, Community and Design Council Academic Design

Creative Citizen Research Scoping Survey
University of Birmingham

Cultural Intermediation Design Council ServiceDesign

Cardiff University Scoping Survey
Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC 41
3– The state of research

Some of the initiatives in research relating to social design in HEIs have been shaped by:
– the influence of research centres such as the Helen Hamlyn Research Centre
(Royal College of Art), ImaginationLancaster (Lancaster University) and Design
Against Crime Research Centre (Central St Martins, UAL);
– foregrounding of design activism and social design in international conference
series such as NORDES, Design History Society, Design Research Society and
Cumulus;
– the influence of the research impact agenda within the Research Excellence
Framework coupled with a growing focus on local and social relevance among
some universities;
– RCUK programmes such as AHRC/EPSRC ‘Designing for the 21st Century’ and
AHRC ‘Connected Communities’;
– student demand for social and sustainability issues to be embraced in
mainstream undergraduate and postgraduate teaching

The diagram on page 42 shows the variety of research that has been recently supported
by the AHRC that overlaps with social design research. It demonstrates strengths in
forging collaborative research programmes with non-HEIs. Opportunities for funding
in which collaboration and impact is heavily embedded have existed with a number of
European Union initiatives. These include:
- Horizon 2020;
- Clusters 2020
- EU Design Innovation
- EU Design Innovation Platform 2013.

Finding
There has not been a concerted RCUK or EU programme to support social
design research. Instead research calls around social design have been implicit
in or embedded in other programmes. This means that social design research is
fragmented. There has not yet been a systematic effort to bring projects together,
compare and evaluate their processes, outcomes and impacts and identify the
important future research questions.
42 Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC
3– The state of research

3.5 –
Collaborating with non-HEI organisations

There are several challenges and opportunities in the tensions between research
funding and collaboration between HEIs and other stakeholders and partners. This
is not entirely unique to social design (e.g. Dillon et al 2014). However, a number of
specific features emerge.
1. Projects v. programmes As already noted in this report, in addition to RCUK
research, there has been some applied or semi-applied research that has
brought HEI design departments into collaboration with NGOs and local,
regional and national government departments. This has often been situated on
the border between HEI consultancy and research. In the former case, projects
have often been derived from the creation and maintenance of long-term
relationships with, for example, local government officers, health specialists or
other consultants in the private sector. The benefits of such consultancy work
are numerous to HEIs. However, this can also result in a fragmented, project-
oriented approach by departments within which opportunities for longer-term
programmes that innovate, test and disseminate new knowledge through HEI
networks may be missed while they primarily have a client focus.
2. Problem-solving v. Infrastructuring Social design research that is engaged
with groups of participants and users outside of universities typically has
two kinds of output. The first is design as problem-solving that addresses
specific local issues. The second is strategy reports aimed at changing future
policy. However there is another way of thinking about the role and activity
of social design research which is to see it as engaged in what might be
termed ‘infrastructuring’ (Ehn 2008). This is about making the socio-material
architectures of social processes, public services, issues and their publics more
explicit, observable and understandable for participants. By bringing such
infrastructures and collective issues into view, social design research makes
available a social world. One result is that participants in a social world may be
more able to engage in active participation, dialogue, and innovation to address
complex collective issues.
3. Timeframes Part of the problem here is a perceived disconnect between the
rapid, shorter-term nature of consultancy work and the longer-term nature
of RCUK funding models. Conversely, RCUK programmes rarely allow the
flexibility for spin-off projects to be undertaken within their own funding
models. Thus, opportunities for greater research-driven experimentation and
testing are also missing.
4. Knowledge transfer A further challenge is in the way that social design
research is communicated. As already stated, non-HEI research, which
is accessible to a wide audience but which may not build on previous
contributions or be of international quality, has had some influence on
practice. Meanwhile, social design practitioners view academic research –
particularly in the social sciences – as being of value but largely inaccessible,
both in terms of the concepts and language used, and also in terms of getting
hold of it.
Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC 43
3– The state of research

…what appears to be lacking

in the current understanding
of design activism is a firmer
theoretical hold on how and why
design activism matters? How
does design activism work? What
is the impact of design activism
on people’s everyday life and what
makes it different from its closely
related ‘sister arts’ – political
activism and art activism?
– Thomas Markussen, (2013)
‘The Disruptive Aesthetics of Design Activism: Enacting Design
between Art and Politics’,
Design Issues, 29(1): 38–50.
44 Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC
3– The state of research

3.7 –
The problem with social design research: detailed findings
Over the course of the project the team has catalogued our observations and findings
as we progressed. Here we present a detailed list of those reflections, some of which
we have already highlighted in the preceding discussion. In Section Four we present
suggested responses to these challenges.

Findings: where we are now

Research context Social design has become a global phenomenon, especially in the past five years.
While much of its language and levels of intervention are shared, it also has different
registers, drivers and accountabilities in politically- and culturally-specific contexts.
Innovation projects that are promoted, for example, by NESTA, the TSB, the Design
Council and the Catapults argue for attending to people’s experiences, and sometimes
aim at social impact. But design research is in service mode here, not aiming at building
knowledge.

Research capacity Policy shifts -- particularly driven by austerity measures and changing modes of
governance such as open policy-making and nudge -- have meant that demand for social
design expertise outstrips supply and heightens the need for researchers to be able to
navigate in complex organisational and multi-disciplinary contexts..
The research agenda is currently dominated by non-HEI bodies that have their own
organisational agendas and are not academically orientated.
There is an absence of a recognizable pipeline through undergraduate teaching to post-
doctoral research.

Research practices Design sector and academic research is fragmented, mostly dominated by ‘problem-
solving’ projects.
Research skills in user observation and behavioural interpretation are strong, while
understandings of the macro-economic, social and policy drivers are weak.
There is limited understanding in the social sciences of social design practice and
research.
Many social design challenges are so acute that design practitioners find it difficult to
engage with them. Belief in their agency is often weak.

Research outputs Lack of criticality in this new area gives rise to emblematic research outputs such
as project reports, which are not intended to be academically rigorous, assuming
importance.
High quality research is inaccessible to non-HEI users. Low grade research is accessible.
Rendering of the object of social design for people to engage with is challenging. The
objects themselves are diverse in their forms, platforms, politics and registers.
The politics of social design continue to be hidden (contra design activism where the
politics are made more explicit).

Research HEI research is often framed as ‘servicing’ non-HEI sectors.

environment Social design produces different sites and temporal formats from mainstream design
practices, sometimes cutting across traditional HEI and non-HEI structures.
Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC 45
3– The state of research

Design which is focused on ‘wicked

problems’ (as is social design
and social innovation) is always
inconclusive ... This sits uneasily
with many design practitioners, and
with academics in an assessment
regime which requires identifiable
measures of success and impact.
Social innovation is also a mode
of design predicated on distributed
creativity and open participation,
beyond more familiar empathic or
user-centred design. Again this may
be difficult for many designers and
academics to accommodate.

– Paul Micklethwaite, Course Leader, MA Sustainable Design,

Kingston University, personal communication,
7 July 2014
46

Section Four

Social Design Futures:

Vision and strategy
In this section we set out a vision for where
social design research could go, a suggested
strategy for how to get there, and some
interim actions.
Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC 47
4– Social Design Futures: Vision and Strategy

4.1 –
Vision
Following on from the table in the previous chapter setting out and categorising
problems in the field, we now propose recommendations for how social design research
might be better realised in the future.

The future landscape of UK social design research

Research context A strong presence in the emerging global research-led social design network.
Local, deep understanding of contextual factors shaping research and practice.

Research capacity A clearer understanding of the relationship of research to policy infrastructure and
cycles.
A critical appraisal of non-HEI institutional capacities, functions and agendas.
Recognition of distinctions between theoretical, conceptual, empirical, action,
foundational and applied research.
Recognition of fuzzy boundaries with closely related research areas e.g. policy, social
innovation and entrepreneurship, behavioural economics, climate change.
Long term capacity building in research-led curricula and post-doc development.

Research practices Multiply-funded, multi-stakeholder and multi-outcome research programmes

addressing cross-disciplinary and cross-sector issues over a variety of timeframes.
Stronger, broader and more exploratory integration of social, political and economic
sciences into design research.
Conditions for pro-active engagement with social design from the social sciences.
Opportunities to involve researchers at the very early stage of creating new models/
services/initiatives.

Research outputs A broader base of peer review.

New conceptualisations of impact that recognise the role of research users in co-
constituting the outcomes of research over different timeframes.
New ways to conceptualise the accountabilities and ethics of social design research
projects.
Quicker, earlier and better research communication to a wide constituency.
Research into making objects of social design more readable and reflexive.

Research Good conditions for co-research: co-funding and co-outputs where HEI and non-HEI
environment stakeholders are engaged together which might include local and central government
projects, commercial providers of social-based services.
Opportunities to use academic knowledge to shape social projects in which new
policies, systems, ventures, practices and institutions are being designed with
implications for wider social contexts (i.e. research shaping doing, not just doing
research while doing).
Locating social design research in third spaces (e.g. museums, libraries, community
action centres).
48 Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC
4– Social Design Futures: Vision and Strategy

4.2 –
Strategy: building a new infrastructure
Here we propose a strategy for actively nurturing and maturing research around social
design. These suggestions respond to the findings and research requirements.
At present, the infrastructure around social design research is hidden and fragmented.
We believe there are four pillars to developing a more robust research ecosystem:
1. We think that there should be a research-led institute or network for social
design that coordinates between HEIs and non-HEI bodies.
2. Given the importance of knowledge transfer, we think that alternative modes
of communicating, sharing and disseminating social design research should be
sought.
3. Social design research involves multiple co-researchers (both HEI and non-
HEI), a variety of outputs and time frames and scales. We need to rethink
research funding frameworks to address this.
4. Career pathways for emergent researchers in social design in the UK are not
clear or visible enough. They need reimagining, and actively developing.

In collaboration with our Advisory Group and other experts who participated in our
Expert Workshop, we developed four scenarios around each of these requirements.
These are presented in more detail in the following ways:
– the findings about the research landscape which it addresses;
– some detail about the proposal;
– possible implications.
Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC 49
4– Social Design Futures: Vision and Strategy

1– A research-led institute or network

Scenario: Social Design Research Observatory
Although this scenario was developed in response to a question about what a new
research institution in the social design landscape might look like, we felt that another
institution is not what is needed, there already being a good number of institutions
operating in this space. The proposed Social Design Observatory is a light touch
intervention, working between and with those institutions to improve the quality of
research.

Relevant findings
1. The research community around social design is highly international, but the
research community just within the UK comprises a very small number of
people. As social design activity is so context-specific, we feel the UK needs to
develop a healthier research community within the context of national and
administrative boundaries.
2. There is a general paucity of high quality theoretical and empirical research in
this area. Instead, there are many action-led projects taking place within and
outside of HEIs without research/ reflection/ discussion/ evaluation happening
alongside or afterwards.
3. There is a lack of criticality around research in this area, partly because much
existing work has been produced by non-HEI actors whose aim has been to
promote or develop practice rather than reflect deeply on it, or evaluate it.
4. There is a lack of transparency about funding for research in this area, and at
present it’s difficult to get a picture of which organisations are getting what
percentage of funding for research about which social challenges focused in
what part of the country.
5. Research that does happen can be piecemeal in nature, with a failure to build
on existing knowledge leading to repetition; and collaboration and connectivity
between institutions could be improved.
6. The funding available could be used better to leverage other funding,
maximising impact, and to increase the visibility of outcomes.
7. There is a need for an institution that ‘builds the field rather than itself’.

Proposal
The Social Design Observatory is intended to play a ‘critical observer’/ impartial third
party role in the social design research ecosystem, and act as a catalyst and cultivator of
improved research activity and outcomes.
It comprises a small group of experts selected from across the social design research
ecosystem: academics from design and adjacent fields, non-academics from relevant
fields, and representatives from donor/ funder organisations, the public sector and civil
society. These individuals are employed on a part time basis for a fixed term.
50 Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC
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Their task while in post is to:

– critically observe existing research activities across the various institutions in
the field;
– provide research support to significant action projects to help capture and
disseminate knowledge;
– conduct their own research and review process to provide transparency about
what research is being funded where, and to look holistically at the impact of
the system;
– use their helicopter view of the system to try and join up overlapping
initiatives;
– provide feedback to funders about research funding calls – i.e. what is needed
and where?

Over time, the Observatory should both inform existing players in the field, and help
them continually improve the quality of their work.
The membership of the Social Design Observatory rotates regularly, in order to prevent
any long-term bias, and to allow a variety actors within the ecosystem to be involved at
one time or another. The Observatory is governed by a strict code of conduct and a set of
guiding values: the objective is to build the field rather than ensure the perpetuation of
the Observatory itself, and interests of members must be declared.
The Observatory’s members are drawn from multiple disciplines, (not solely design),
and accordingly the reporting relationships go across Research Councils (not solely
AHRC), to help facilitate jointly funded research programmes. The Observatory itself
is funded by AHRC and other Research Councils as an important instrument for
leveraging bigger gains from existing research investments, and as a useful feedback
mechanism around future research needs. However it maintains some institutional
independence from the Research Councils. It must also maintain independence from
the currently-dominant organisations in the field.

Implications
In the immediate term, this idea needs further development with appropriate partners.
The governance, administration and funding of this entity is not necessarily simple and
requires some consideration.
However, if successful, we would see almost instant returns in terms of the
identification of overlapping initiatives and opportunities for collaboration, and
increased research output from action-led projects.
Over the long term, we will see sustained collaborations, and new ways of doing
research. A more mature, diverse and richer research community will emerge, one that
has contributions from a range of disciplines, greater rigour and criticality, as well as a
broader view of the types of research outcomes that are valid and possible.
Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC 51
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2– Communicating Social Design Research

Scenario: Social Design Research Archive

Relevant Findings
The following proposal responds directly to the findings of our research, which
identified the following issues.
1. There is a lack of rigour and criticality in social design research.
2. There is no shared open or transparent space to present research and
knowledge exchange between academics and practitioners. Practitioners in
particular find it hard to access academic research.
3. There are blurred boundaries between research and practice in social design.
4. The context-specific and often locally-situated nature of social design research
and practice can make it difficult to communicate and share.
5. The infrastructures of social design research and practice are sometimes hidden
or invisible.
6. There is a need for greater understanding of the histories and trajectories of
social design in the UK and internationally.

Proposal
We considered the following to be key issues.
1. Open access is a priority in the sharing and dissemination of social design
research. While this might be a goal for all future research, this is particularly
critical to the development of social design, since it is currently rooted in
multiple disciplines, practices and communities. A research platform might
facilitate a stronger dialogue between and across these groups. Taking into
account the various voices and levels of interest in social design, academic
journal articles should be considered only one method of communicating
research outcomes in this field. Practitioners and researchers should also be
encouraged to share research by other means, including video, visual evidence,
blogs, events and short reports. This might better reflect the dynamic and
textured nature of social design research. While these outputs already exist and
are circulated within different social design communities, they are often not
visible to the field as a whole. An open access site to manage and disseminate
this work would therefore be helpful.
2. Peer review The function of peer review is of greater importance in an open-
access research platform, in order to maintain standards and advance research,
and to create a public conversation about research quality and impact.
Leadership in social design sits in a number of communities and not in only
one field of research. Research leaders should therefore be encouraged to
validate and peer review this space. In addition to academic researchers who
may peer review a journal article, there should be an appointed board of ‘peer
reviewers’ embedded in practice, commercial organisations and NGOs, policy
52 Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC
4– Social Design Futures: Vision and Strategy

and education. In this expanded practice of peer review, quality and standards
should be maintained as appropriate to different levels and for different
audiences.
3. Dissemination In order for peer-reviewed research to build and reach its
audiences, dissemination should work at different speeds. While it should
provide a rich body of rigorous written or visual research reports, it should also
have the capacity to respond to ongoing work in social design practice within
a much shorter time frame. A process of digital ‘tagging’ by the peer reviewers
and leaders would facilitate this. Given the often locally situated nature of
social design research, a geographical mapping tool could also be used.

Social Design Research Archive

How and where should this content be managed? Building on the key elements
outlined thus far, this space should be easily accessible, clearly visible, reviewed and
endorsed by experts. It should also be responsive to live developments in the field. To
accommodate this, the institution of a digital archive space, a Social Design Research
Archive, would serve two functions.
a) The process of interactive archiving, which involves digital tagging systems and
allows researchers to upload and showcase the new activities as they happen,
would enable the consolidation of this research for the future, providing deep
and rich content from which to objectively view the evolution of the discipline.
b) It would also provide a touch-point for academics, practitioners and policy-
makers to share and critique research. This would contribute to a more critical,
transparent and expert-led space for social design.

Implications
If instituted, this communication platform would involve the following short and long
term research implications:
Short term
– Illuminates existing research activities in a shared space so that it might be
evaluated and studied more clearly
– Identifies and engages existing communities of social design research and
practice and invites new ones
– Acts as an immediate point of communication between research and practice
– Introduces a culture of storing, archiving and reflecting upon research in this
area
Long term
– Ensures development of a deeper and more critical reflection of the evolution of
social design activities
– Institutes a process of peer review across research and practice
– Moves towards an international perspective on social design
– Contributes to a longer term commitment to the exchange between research
and practice
– Provides a platform on which to view the moving histories of social design
Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC 53
4– Social Design Futures: Vision and Strategy

3– Funding Framework
Scenario: New Questions for Funding Application

Findings
Our findings identified mismatches between AHRC research funding processes and
future ways by which social design research might operate. The issues were as follows.
1. Social design research often lacks reflexivity in being explicit about its actual
societal context and impacts and in its positioning.
2. Social design research that involves external collaborations often emerges out
of long-term relationships between the HEI and other bodies -- the depth and
sustainability of social design research often springs from this.
3. Collaborative research in social design often involves multiple actors in co-
research mode rather than smaller, hierarchical teams inside HEIs.
4. Collaborations may have various temporal cycles involving, for example,
short-term work as part of longer-term engagements that make up the overall
programme.
5. All social design research has unintended consequences. The potentially
negative outcomes on stakeholders and communities raise serious political and
ethical issues.
6. HEIs may take a strategically staged approach to building capacity, making
small bids early on but with a view to larger programmes in the future.
7. The breadth of the field means that proposals may have distinct specialisms
calling for high-level, specific expertise and understanding of the scope of a
proposal.

Proposal
We developed a series of questions that could be included in the grant application
process in order to address the above challenges. In essence, they represent a greater
flexibility of approach to bidding for funding than in what current exists, promoting a
reflexive, self- questioning mindset among applicants and reviewers.
54 Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC
4– Social Design Futures: Vision and Strategy

New question to be included in Reason for including it

funding applications

What is your vision? And, how will you In order to avoid being merely presented as a problem-solving
make a contribution to social design? exercise, it is important that applicants are able to articulate the
impact their proposal will have in broader societal terms. Equally,
how the work will develop research in the social design field must
be clearly presented.

What is the history of your engagement Social design research may spring from long-term engagement
with this context? with outside collaborators which may not necessarily have been
research-led. Nonetheless, it is important to acknowledge this
background and its role in establishing the research context.

What is the role of risk in the proposal? Social design practice is beset with pressures to demonstrate
How will you manage this? efficacy and value. In contrast, social design research may more
easily embrace risk in its quest for new knowledge while
remaining accountable and managing that risk.

Why do you see social design as an It does not necessarily follow that taking a social design approach
appropriate vehicle for the project? to an issue is the most appropriate response. The choice of field
And, why do you suggest working at the and approach must itself be rationalised. While it is essential
scale you are proposing? that social design research is not parochial, inward looking or
merely small-scale problem-solving, it may involve prototyping
at intimate scales with communities and groups. This should not
be penalised. A critical understanding of the efficacy of working
at a particular scale is important.

What is your plan for research capacity Given that social design is often developed through small-scale
building (either individual or collective)? collaborations, building capacity towards more ambitious
programmes, it is important that the application process allows
for a discrete proposal to be reviewed in the context of a longer-
term capacity building activity.

What are the likely follow-on outputs? Recognizing that social design research often involves long-term
relationships with multifarious actors, outputs may be generated
outside the time-frame of the proposed project.

Who are the multiple Co-Investigators Social design research may engage multiple stakeholders and
(HEI and non-HEI)? researchers. In order to stimulate co-research and co-creation
that is meaningfully collaborative and equitable, the application
process should be able to include many more Co-Investigators
than presently allowed.

How will co-creation be delivered by this Developing collaborative models within the research may be a
project and what is your vision of significant part of it and the researcher’s approach to this may be
collaboration? a significant part of the application.

What academic and non-academic Non-traditional outputs that are not central to the research may
outputs do you plan to deliver and why? also be vital in materialising, implementing and testing the
project. Knowledge transfer may not necessarily always take place
through, for instance, reports or seminars, but through a variety
of means including finished designs. It may also follow that in a
co-funding model, non-academic outputs may be costed through
other, non-RCUK funding sources.
Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC 55
4– Social Design Futures: Vision and Strategy

What academic specialisms/centres Given the emergent, cross-disciplinary and experimental nature
would be able to evaluate this project? of social design, as well as its variety of approaches and contexts,
it is important that the applicants are able to help the evaluation
through identifying cognate specialists who will be able to
critically and objectively review the proposal.

Implications
If these questions were included in future funding calls, the following might be likely.
1. Social design researchers would continue to build links within and across their
own institutions and with other HEIs and with external collaborators such
as local and central government departments, social ventures, NGOs, SMEs
and corporations, community groups, think tanks and consultancies. HEI
research managers would have to develop ways of understanding, assessing and
supporting such relationships and relationship-building.
2. Researchers would focus on addressing collective, societal problematics. In
contrast, where individual HEIs are competing for resources, HEI research
managers would focus on institutional capacity building. This might result in
tensions between these internal and external orientations.
3. Social design research takes place in a continually changing policy and
practice landscape in which it speculates, takes risks, and prototypes, tests
and evaluates future policies, practices, services and products. Such research
may anticipate but also produce futures which are harmful and have negative
consequences. This needs to be addressed.
4. The question of demonstrating impact in social design research is particularly
challenging, given the many qualitative variables at stake and the many actors
involved in designing. It may be difficult for researchers to anticipate what
these are and how they can be analysed. In the current funding regime which
stresses the need to have impact, researchers may feel pressurised not to admit
that some of these might be unknown; indeed, it may be a positive indicator of
some proposed research that these are not known at application stage.
5. If some of the questions listed above were introduced into funding calls,
specialist training for reviewers might be required.
56 Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC
4– Social Design Futures: Vision and Strategy

4– Career Pathways for Social Design Researchers

Scenario: Social Design Researcher CVs of the Future

Findings
This section considers the implications for research careers shaped by our findings as
follows.
1. There is a weak academic research base relating to social design in the UK with
a limited pipeline of future researchers.
2. There are specialist hubs focusing on specific areas such as the Design Against
Crime Research Centre at Central Saint Martins, but social design research is
diffused across HEI design departments, programmes and institutions.
3. There are and will remain fuzzy boundaries with specialisms such as social
entrepreneurship, healthcare/well-being, social policy and other fields.
4. There is an opportunity to see the practice orientation of social designing as a
key way for AHRC research funding to have impact.

Proposal
Appendix 7 presents four imaginary CVs posted on a future web service called Research-
Link in the year 2030. Borrowing elements of the design of social media sites and of
LinkedIn, this research service imagines people post CVs to look for work and to share
their activities and contributions, accompanied by citations, embedded links and
recommendations.
The concepts that are built into the three CVs are that:
a) research careers are less about institutions, jobs and publications, and more
about projects, roles, outputs and impact. So the CVs give space to reports,
videos and frameworks (and how they have been cited, recommended and
linked to/embedded and used) as well as more traditional academic outputs
such as journal papers;
b) research careers are international but also very localised, based on connections
between HEIs, corporate partners and SMEs, funders, and communities and
policy agendas;
c) practice-based PhDs and research in social designing are a major way that
social design research takes place. This does not exclude or diminish the
need for conceptual or theoretical research, but it does recognize the distinct
opportunity that emerges from understanding designing as constituting new
sets of relations between actors resulting in some kind of change and impact.

Implications
If future researcher careers went in the directions suggested above, the following might
be likely.
1. An expanded notion of practice-based research in designing would emerge.
Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC 57
4– Social Design Futures: Vision and Strategy

This would refocus designing as taking place in an expanded field involving

communities, activism, policy contexts such as healthcare, care or development,
social innovation, social entrepreneurship, local and central government, third
sector and corporate organizations. A generation of design researchers working
in relation to these fields would be strongly oriented towards exploring,
creating, testing and analysing new policies, systems, services and products.
It would require them to develop and sustain deep knowledge of a specialist
area such as ageing as well as the processes and methods of designing typically
associated with design HEIs.
2. Such career pathways would involve extensive field-spanning and institution-
spanning. Social design research would not just live in HEIs that have design
departments or schools, but would be diffused across many different academic
fields and kinds of research organisation.
3. The shift to recognizing careers based on projects, roles, outputs and impact
rather than institutions, jobs and publications would present challenges
for HEIs in building and sustaining research capacity. For example it would
require changes to HR processes such as researcher recruitment and retention
strategies, and to doctoral training and supervision.
58 Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC
4– Social Design Futures: Vision and Strategy

4.3 –
Strategy: New Research Themes
At present, the subjects and kinds of research taking place within the orbit of social
design are limited to a few very specific areas. The following table sets out some
potential new research themes, of varying breadth and focus, some of which may
coincide with existing AHRC priorities. They are either:
– recommended as cases which may show how and where design can act as an
interlocutor between other disciplines and approaches, or
– build on current UK HEI research strengths, or
– represent an area where there has been little work to date.
For each theme, we suggest a theoretical or conceptual research topic, a potential area
of empirical or applied research, and possible collaborators.

Theme Theoretical/conceptual Empirical/applied Potential collaborators

research research

Impact Conceptualising the Designing and testing Nesta; ESRC

impact of design-based metrics systems and
approaches within policy evaluation processes;
contexts and between understanding the impact of
design and action particular designs that have
been developed that might
be scaled

History Understanding the Identifying, documenting V&A; Design Museum; Oral

instantiations of social and communicating the History Society; University
design from historical diverse histories of design of Brighton Design Archives
perspectives activism and social design

Local/Central How political theories and Scale, temporalities, ESRC; Local Government
Government policy modes of governance accountabilities and Association; MacArthur
contribute to and require governance of design-driven Foundation Network on
different kinds of social policy labs Opening Governance
designing

Participation and The ethics and ontologies Understanding the Local authorities; EPSRC;
collaboration of participation and implications of different OpenIDEO; DESIS Network
collaboration modes of participation and
collaboration, including via
digital networks

The object of Exploring approaches to Temporality and the objects ESRC

social design designing for behaviour of designing
change and changes in
social practices
Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC 59
4– Social Design Futures: Vision and Strategy

Theme Theoretical/conceptual Empirical/applied Potential collaborators

research research

Student and Non HEI-based teaching The generation of new Local Government
professional skills, and learning and curricula, approaches, methods and Association, Rockerfeller
knowledge and professional identity tools for designing around Foundation, Nesta, Design
tools formation thematic knowledge Council; DESIS Network

Innovation Concepts and approaches Early stage co-research and Skoll Foundation; TSB;
management and to design for/with smart co-design with stakeholders, EPSRC; Social Innovation
entrepreneurship cities, open data, network distributed participatory Exchange
governance and austerity prototyping

Development and Challenging Design research in UNIDIR/Policy Lab; DESIS

humanitarian aid conceptualisations of development contexts Network; IDEO; Frog
development and evidence
in social design

Ageing How ageing is understood Critical review of HEI design ESRC; MRC; TSB
and constituted through for ageing projects
the design of services,
policies, systems and
products

Criminal justice Conceptualising deviance, Design and its relationship ESRC; Ministry of Justice
marginality and difference to offending and prisoner
in relation to the design of behaviour
policies, systems, services
and products
60 Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC
4– Social Design Futures: Vision and Strategy

4.4 –
Strategy: Interim Actions
Social design is at a critical point. Strong growth in student demand, professional
practice and interest among non-HEI stakeholders has meant that practice has
outstripped research capacity. Further, government interest in the potential of design-
based approaches to sit within policy-making and implementation puts pressure on
it to perform successfully. This presents the AHRC with the challenge of mediating
between the urgent requirement to build a strong research base while attending to the
enormous potential to create positive social impact through knowledge transfer and co-
creating new solutions to address contemporary issues.
There are several interim activities which should be invested in to drive this agenda. The
aim should be to find a way to institutionalise and embed this research agenda and to
further explore and realise its potential in collaboration with other stakeholders.
We recommend that the following activities happen within one year.
1. A research symposium to critically review the moment of social design research
across disciplinary perspectives including sociology, policy studies, and
healthcare and social care.
2. Produce research calls based on themes recommended in this report.
3. Set up working groups to further explore and shape the four infrastructure
initiatives outlined in this report, to produce a roadmap to develop them along
with a project plan and budget:
a) observatory;
b) communication platform and archive;
c) funding application;
d) pathways for career support.
4. Experiment with new kinds of collaboration between AHRC and other research
councils and non-HEI bodies such as Nesta.
5. Create counterfactual case studies of completed research projects. This could
take the form of speculative research to consider and evaluate how outcomes
might have been different if methods and approaches drawing on social design
had been adopted.
Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC 61
2– The Context

In social design, we now have

a broader sense of purpose and
sense of capabilities of design
but we don’t have clarity about
its financing and the ways of
professionalising it as a process
that someone will pay for and
where it might be done and who
might do it.

– Katie Hill, AHRC Connected Communities Researcher,

Sheffield Hallam University,
interview 05/12/2013
62

Section Five

Supporting Material
Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC 63
5– Supporting Material

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change’. Environment and Planning, 42(6): 1273-1285.
Thaler, Richard H. and Cass R. Sustein (2009). Nudge, Improving Decisions about Health,
Wealth and Happiness, Penguin: London.
Thorpe, Adam and Lorraine Gamman (2011). Special Issue: ‘Socially Responsive Design’,
Co-Design: International Journal of Co-Creation in Design and the Arts, 7 (3-4).
Verhulst, S., Noveck, B, Caplan, R., Brown, K. and Paz, C. (2014). The Open Data Era in
Health and Social Care. Gov Lab.
<http://images.thegovlab.org/wordpress/wp- content/uploads/2014/06/nhs-full-report.
pdf > [Accessed 12 July, 2014].
Whitely, Nigel (1994). Design for Society, Reaktion Books: London.
Williamson, Ben (2014). Policy labs, sociable governance and smart software.
<http://codeactsineducation.wordpress.com/2014/04/02/policy-labs-sociable-
governance- and-smart-software/> [Accessed 12 July, 2014].
Yee, Joyce, Emma Jeffries and Lauren Tan (2013). Design Transitions: Inspiring Stories, Global
Viewpoints, Bis Publishers: Amsterdam.
66 Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC
5– Supporting Material

Appendix 1 –
Interviews

Katie Crepeau Design Affects 10/11/2013

Lee Davis MICA Centre for Social Design 11/11/2013

Mary Rose Cook Uscreates 13/11/2013

Pelle Ehn and MEDEA, Malmö University 22/11/2013

Anders Emilson

Vinay Venkatraman Leapcraft, Copenhagen 23/11/2013

Derek B Miller Director of Policy Lab and Senior Fellow UN Institute for 27/11/2013
Disarmament Research

Maziar Raien Kunsthogskolen I Oslo, Oslo National Academy of the Arts 27/11/2013

Ted Matthews AHO Oslo School of Architecture and Design, Social Innovation 28/11/2013
Unit, Centre for Design Research

Heidi Dolven and Norskform, Oslo 28/11/2013

Siri Eggesvik

Katie Hill PhD Candidate, University of Brighton and Connected 05/12/2013

Communities and Connected Communities Researcher,
Sheffield Hallam University

Alison Thomson PhD Candidate, Goldsmiths 06/12/2013

Leeor Levy live|work 06/12/2013

Sarah Mann British Council 09/12/2013

Tom Farrand Founding Partner of Swarm and Good for Nothing 10/12/2013

Marci Cooperman IIT Institute of Design 10/12/2013

Alison Black and Centre for Information Design Research, University of Reading 12/12/2013
Sue Walker

Bas Raijmakers and STBY 12/12/2013

Geke van Dijk

Rachel Pascual Open Policymaking Team, Cabinet Office 13/12/2013

Eric Levine Girl Hub, Nike Foundation 16/12/2013

Louise Armstrong Forum for the Future 18/12/2013

Lorraine Gamman Design Against Crime Research Centre, UAL 19/12/2013

and Adam Thorpe
Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC 67
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Haidee Bell Nesta 19/12/2013

Melani Oliver Innovation Lab, NESTA 10/01/2014

Jonty Oliff-Cooper Independent 12/13/2014

& 10/01/2014

Noel Hatch Research and Design Manager at Kent County Council 10/01/2014

Lynne Maher Formerly NHS Innovation Unit 15/01/14

Mat Hunter, Design Council 17/01/2014

Ailbhe McNabola,
Yvonne Harris

Ed Gardiner Behavioural Design Lab, Warwick Business School/Design Council 17/01/2014

Nat Hunter Co-Director of Design, Royal Society of Arts 23/01/2014

Claire Webb Formerly Head of Strategy Southwark Council 23/01/2014

Andrea Siodmok Head of Policy Lab, Cabinet Office 24/01/2014

James Duggan Manchester Metropolitan University 03/02/2014

Tatjana Schneider School of Architecture, University of Sheffield 07/02/2014

Sarah Drummond Snook, Glasgow 24/02/2014

Satu Miettinen and Lapland University 19/03/2014

delegation

Sevra Davis RSA Student design awards manager 25/03/2014

Ezio Manzini Politecnico di Milano, International Co-Ordinator, DESIS 07/04/2014

Owen Jarvis Clore Social Leadership Fellow 12/04/2014

Alison Prendiville Course Leader MDes Service Design Innovation, LCC 14/04/2014

Natasha Reid Architect, London 14/04/2014

Martin Roach Designer, Epitype, London 23/04/2014

Sarah Wigglesworth University of Sheffield, Architect 05/05/2014

Javier Aguirre Ramos Universidad ICESI, Cali, Colombia 08/07/2014

68 Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC
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Appendix 2 –
Attendance

Date We Attended Not Attended

November 2013 DESIS Workshop, Camden Council SDN Global 2013,

Social Design Talk 13, Thomas Markussen. Cardiff
UAL Desis Lab

December 2013 Book launch: Design Transitions, London

January 2014 ‘Designing Publics, Publics Designing.

Design Roles in Social Innovation’, Stockholm
Social Design Talk 14 Vinay Venkatraman,
V&A Museum

February 2014 ‘The Value of Design’, AHRC/Glasgow School of Art

March 2014 Region27e Seminar, Innovation Global Service Jam 2014

Unit Social Design Talk 15: Bo Reimer,
V&A Museum

April 2014 Social Design Talk 16: Nesta/STBY/ ServDes Conference 2014,
Quicksand Toolkit, CSM, UAL Lancaster

May 2014 Encouraging Design Driven Public Sector ‘New Public Goods: Labs,
Society of Turkish Design Historians: Publics and Practices’,
‘Resistance’. ‘Exploring the total beauty of New York
sustainable design’, University of Southern
Denmark ‘Labs for Systems Change’,
Toronto

‘Designed to Improve’,
HafenCity University,
Hamburg

June 2014 Inventing the Social, CSISP, DMY International Design

Goldsmiths, London Festival, ‘Social Design Focus’,
Berlin

‘Design with All, Participatory

Methods for Social Inclusion’,
Royal Danish Academy of Fine
Arts, School of Design,
Denmark
Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC 69
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Appendix 3 –
Workshops

Practitioner Workshop
Innovation Unit, London, 27 Feb, 2014, 1400-1600h

Participants
Joel Bailey Director of Service and Experience Design, Capita.
Aviv Katz Partner and Co-Head of Service Design, Innovation Unit
Megha Wadhawan Design Research Assistant, STBY, London.
Leeor Levy Senior Service Designer and Project Lead, live|work, London.
Joseph Smith Designer, Makerversity.
Kate Burn, Service Development Lead, Participle.
Mary Rose Cooke Co-Founder and Managing Director, UsCreates.
Catherine Greig Architect, MakeGood

Expert Workshop
Victoria & Albert Museum, London, Monday 2 June, 2014, 0930-1730h

Participants
*Lee Davis Scholar-in-Residence, Maryland Institute College of Art
James Duggan Research Assistant, Manchester Metropolitan University
Lorraine Gamman Professor of Product and Spatial Design, Central St Martins,
University of the Arts London
Joe Harrington Partner and Co-Head of Service Design, Innovation Unit
*Sabine Junginger Associate Professor, Kolding School of Design, Denmark
*Peter Lloyd Professor of Design, University of Brighton
Ezio Manzini Professor of Design Politecnico di Milano, Visiting Professor Central St
Martins, University of the Arts London
*Daniella Sangiorgi Senior Lecturer, Service Design, University of Lancaster
Adam Thorpe Creative Director of Design Against Crime Research Centre, Central St Martins,
University of the Arts London
Cameron Tonkinwise Director of Design Studies, Carnegie Mellon University

Note-taker: Lilian Sanchez Moreno, Visiting MA Student, University

of Brighton/Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

*denotes Advisory Group member.Other members, Pelle Ehn, MEDEA, Malmo University and Gordon Hush, Glasgow School
of Art were unable to attend the workshop.
70 Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC
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Appendix 4 –
Speculative Brief Contributors

Speculative Digital Research published on mappingsocialdesign.org

Andrea Botero Aalto University, Helsinki
Joanna Saad-Sulonen
Mariana Salgado
Heath Bunting Artist, Irational.org
Cara Courage PhD candidate University of Brighton
Sarah Desmaris PhD candidate, Falmouth University
Heidi Dolven Advisor, Norwegian Centre for Design and Architecture (NorskForm)
Ted Matthews PhD Fellow Oslo School of Architecture and Design (AHO)
Adrian Paulsen Lecturer AHO
Fiona Hackney Associate Professor, Design Cultures and Community Engagement,
Falmouth University
Cigdem Kaya Associate Professor of Design and Design Research, Istanbul Technical
University
María del Carmen Lamadrid Design Researcher at LA-Más
Daniel Olmos PhD candidate sociology University of California, Santa Barbara
Maria Prestes Joly Federal University of Rio de Janeiro
Kakee Scott Lecturer in Strategic Design and Management, Parsons The New School of
Design, New York
Yifan Zhang Shanghai
Wezeit Editorial Team
Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC 71
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72 Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC
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Appendix 5 –
Timeline of related initiatives, 2005-13

2005 2006 2007 2008

Conferences, networks • Design and the Social • Rockefeller Bellagio

and seminars Sciences seminar series, symposium on design for
Centre for the Study of social impact.
Invention and Social • Changing the Change,
Process, Goldsmiths, Torino.
London. • Better world by Design,
• Emergency Service Rhode Island (USA).
Design Conference • Service Design Network
organised by Carnegie Conference, Amsterdam.
Mellon University. • Service Design Network
(SDN) UK.

University courses and • Design Against Crime • Illinois Institute of • Service Design • Designing out Medical
research networks Research Centre, UAL Technology launches dual Leadership program, Oslo Error, Helen Hamlyn, RCA
Master of Design and School of Architecture and • Design London
MBA Design (RCA-Imperial): MA
• MBA Design Elective, • MBA Design Strategy, Innovation Management.
Said Business School, California College of the • MA Innovation
Oxford. Arts Management, Central
• Agency, Architectural Saint Martins, UAL
Research Centre,
University of Sheffield.

Policy initiatives • MaRS Solutions Lab, • Social Innovation Lab • Innovation Unit (UK). • La 27e Region, (France).
Toronto, (Canada). for Kent SILK, (UK) • GoodLab, Hong Kong.
• Design Council RED • Mindlab (Denmark)
project ends (UK) expands role.
• DOTT 07: Design Council
and Northumbria
University School of
Design.

Design consultancies • Uscreates (UK) • Leeds Love it Share It, • Futuregov (UK).
(UK). • Project H (USA).
 73

2009 2010 2011 2012 2013

• ServDes Conference, • LSE and UK Design • DHS: Design Activism • Social Design Talks (V&A). • DN Global Conference,
Oslo. Council Public Policy and Social Change, • Social Impact Design Cardiff.
seminar series. Barcelona Summit, Cooper Hewitt • Social Innovation Camp
• Participation Innovation Museum. (UK)
Conference, (PINC), • Global Service Jam. • Designing Publics,
Denmark. • ServDes conference as Publics Designing
Global Service Jam. part of World Design Conference, Stockholm.
Capital Helsinki. • Global Service Jam.
• Social Design Talks,
(UAL/V&A)

• Stanford Change Labs • MA Social Design at • MFA Design for Social • MA Design for Services • BA/MDes Design Futures,
• RCA Helen Hamlyn Maryland Institute of Art, Innovation at School of at DJCAD, Dundee University of Brighton,
Student Program Baltimore Visual Arts, NYC • LCC change name from • Institute of Design
• MEDEA: Design Led • MFA Transdisciplinary MDes Innovation and Innovation, Glasgow
Research Centre for Design at Parsons, NY Creativity in Industry to School of Art
Collaborative Media at • Behavioural Design Lab, MDes Service Design • Servicedesignresearch.com
Malmo University Warwick Business School Innovation. • Masters in Service and
• Design Innovation MA and Design Council • MA Service Design RCA Experience Design Domus
Glasgow School of Art Academy
• Design for Social • Masters in Public Policy
Innovation and MPP) at Cambridge
Sustainability (DESIS) University
network. • California College of the
• LCC MDes Innovation Arts MBA in Public Policy
and Creativity in Industry. Design and MBA in
• Design and Rehabilitation Strategic Insight
Initiative, RSA.

• The Australian Centre for • Big Society program (UK) • Localism Act • Design.gov.au • Centre for Social Action
Social Innovation (TACSI) • Open Government • Young Foundation • Human Experience Lab, -- NESTA and Gov.UK
(Australia). License (UK) appoints Head of Social (Singapore) • Design without Borders
• NESTA Innovation Lab (UK) Design • NESTA innovation in becomes independent
• DOTT07 Cornwall and • Public Policy Lab Giving Fund NGO, (Norway).
Isles of Scilly, Design New York. • Design Commission • Laboratorio para la
Council, University College enquiry into design for cuidad, Mexico.
Falmouth and Technology public services • Plans set for Cabinet
Strategy Board. Office Policy Unit

• Snook (UK) • IDEO.org • Policy Lab, Oslo. • Design Affects (UK)

• Free Design Clinic (USA) • AIGA Design for Good • American Institute of
• Participle (UK). (USA) Architects (AIA) launches
• Sidekick Studios (UK). Public Interest Design
• OpenIDEO web platform
74 Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC
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Appendix 6 –
Social Innovation Labs and Policy Design Labs Worldwide

Name and Location Goal Founded

Design for Change Centre, Aimed at ‘directing design thinking towards creating new 2009
Stanford, USA. strategic paradigms that bring about rapid change in some
of the larger problems facing mankind including energy,
climate change, water and global health’.
https://web.stanford.edu/group/designforchange/index.html

SociaLab, Chile. ‘Seeks solutions to the major problems that affect the most 2012
vulnerable and least opportunities of the world people. To
identify opportunities that social entrepreneurship and
pose challenges for those wishing to submit proposals to
take charge of solving them’.
http://www.socialab.com/

Kennisland, An independent think tank with a public mission focusing 1999

The Netherlands on social innovation in education, government, heritage,
creative economy and culture.
http://www.kennisland.nl/en/about-kennisland

Mind Lab, Copenhagen, ‘A cross-governmental innovation unit which involves 2002

Denmark. citizens and businesses in creating new solutions for
society’.
http://www.mind-lab.dk/en

Institute Without An ‘educational program and studio that works towards 2003
Boundaries, Toronto, collaborative design action and seeks to achieve social,
Canada. ecological and economic innovation’.
http://www.institutewithoutboundaries.com/

Social Innovation Labs Labs across India addressing problems in the areas of 2003
(SILs) at the Organisation disability, social security, urban education, rural
for Awareness of Integrated education and volunteering.
Social Security, (OASiS),
India.

MaRS Solution Lab, ‘Driving economic and social prosperity by harnessing 2005
Toronto, Canada. the full potential of innovation’.
http://www.marsdd.com/systems-change/mars-solutions-
lab/mars-solutions-lab-approach/

Lien Centre for Social Partnership between the Lien Foundation and Singapore 2006
Innovation, Singapore. Management University to ‘advance thinking and capacity
of the social sector’.
http://centres.smu.edu.sg/lien/
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Innovation Unit, UK. Not-for-profit social enterprise committed to ‘using the 2006
power of innovation to solve social challenges’.
http://www.innovationunit.org/

DESIS Labs: ‘Groups of professors, researchers and students who orient 2006
Australia, Belgium, their design and research activities towards social
Botswana, Brazil, Canada, innovation. They can operate at the local scale with local
Chile, China (x7), partners and, in collaboration with other DESIS Labs, they
Colombia (x2), can also engage in regional and global large-scale projects
Denmark, France, India, and programs. They are based in Design Schools and
Italy, Japan (x3), Kenya, design-oriented universities and can be extensions of
Netherlands, New Zealand, already existing entities or new, specifically established ones’.
Portugal, South Africa, http://www.desis-network.org/
Sweden (x2), Turkey, UK (x4),
Brasil (x3), South Korea (x2),
USA (X4)

Good Lab, ‘Facilitating cross sector collaborations and setting up of 2007

Hong Kong. entrepreneurial ventures and projects that bring new
solutions to social problems’.
http://goodlab.hk/

Social Innovation The Social Innovation Lab for Kent (SILK) was set up ‘to 2007
Lab for Kent (SILK), UK provide a creative environment for a wide range of people
to work together on some of the toughest challenges the
county faces. And by drawing upon best practice from
business, design and social science, as well as our own
experiences in Kent’.
http://socialinnovation.typepad.com/silk/

Helsinki Design Lab (HDL) Helsinki Design Lab ‘helped government leaders see the 2008-13
“architecture of problems’, by assisting decision-makers to
view challenges from a big-picture perspective, and
provide guidance toward more complete solutions that
consider all aspects of a problem’.
http://www.helsinkidesignlab.org/

La 27e Region, France A ‘laboratory for new public policies in the digital age’ 2008
http://blog.la27eregion.fr/

The Australian Centre for Innovation lab ‘tackling Australia’s tough social challenges’. 2009
Social Innovation, (TACSI), http://www.tacsi.org.au/
Australia.

Nesta Innovation Lab, UK. Works with innovators in government, public services, 2009
civil society and business ‘to develop radical new
responses to some of the most pressing social and
economic challenges’.

I-Zone, New York, USA. A community of schools committed to ‘personalizing 2010

learning environments to accelerate college and career
readiness for students’.
http://izonenyc.org/
76 Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC
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The Studio, Dublin, Ireland. The Studio is an ‘innovation team of seven people from 2010
different areas of Dublin City Council and with skills that
include planning, architecture, area management,
community development, risk management,
communications and marketing.’ It aims ‘to grow DCC’s
capacity to innovate and improve the quality of services.
http://thestudiodcc.com/

Unicef Innovation Labs: Founded to reach out to help vulnerable communities and 2010
Kosovo, Uganda, Zimbabwe families, the unicef lab is ‘a space and set of protocols for
and Copenhagen. engaging young people, technologists, private sector, and
civil society in problem-solving’.
http://unicefinnovation.org/

Brac Social Innovation Labs, Aim to build a space for learning, capacity and innovation 2011
India. all across India.
http://www.brac.net/content/social-innovation-lab#.
U8UFvPldV8E

Public Policy Lab, The Public Policy Lab ‘helps Americans build better lives 2011
New York, USA. by improving the design and delivery of public services’.
It is a not-for-profit organization.
http://publicpolicylab.org/

The Human Experience Lab ‘Helps Singapore’s public agencies design and develop 2012
(THE), Singapore. public policies, services and experiences that are more
human-centred’.

DesignGov, Australian An 18 month experimental pilot to ‘meet the challenges of 2012

Public Service. delivering innovative, practical solutions to today’s
complex problems and to explore new methods in
solution formulation, development and delivery’.
http://design.gov.au/

The Office for Personnel ‘A distinct physical space with a set of policies for 2012
Management (OPM) engaging people and using technology in problem solving.
Innovation Lab, USA. The goals of OPM’s innovation lab are to provide federal
workers with 21st century skills in design-led innovation,
such as intelligent risk-taking to develop new services,
products, and processes’.

New Urban Mechanics, ‘Collaborating with Boston residents and organizations to 2012
Boston and Philadelphia, deliver a new generation of civic services’.
USA. http://www.newurbanmechanics.org/

Innovate SF, San Francisco, ‘To create an environment that allows innovation to 2012
USA. flourish in City Hall’.
http://innovatesf.com/
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GovLab, USA ‘Founded in 2012, with funding from the MacArthur and 2012
Knight Foundations, the Governance Lab (the GovLab)
brings together thinkers and doers who design, implement,
and study technology enabled solutions that advance a
collaborative, networked approach to reinvent institutions
of governance. The GovLab aims to improve people’s lives
by changing how we govern’.
http://thegovlab.org/

Behavioural Design Lab: Aims to unite behavioural science and design-thinking to 2012
Warwick Business School solve society’s biggest issues.
and Design Council, (UK)

Laboratorio para la cuidad, ‘Creates dialogue and complicity between government, civil 2013
Mexico society, private sector and NGOs in order to reinvent a
whole, some areas of city and government’.

InWithForward, ‘We like to build teams in homes, neighborhoods and 2013

Rotterdam, The Netherlands systems with people, professionals, and policymakers. To
make, test, and realize interventions that get to the bottom
of social challenges and move lives forward’.
http://inwithforward.com/

Policy Lab, Cabinet Office, Works with policy teams to test how design principles and 2014
UK. methods can improve the ‘pace, quality and deliverability
of policy in the Civil Service’.

Innovation Laboratory, ‘The first Innovation Laboratory project, which will be Due 2014
Northern Ireland, UK. undertaken in conjunction with the Department of
Enterprise, Trade and Investment, will focus on the
operation of Regulatory Impact Assessments, and will
consider how these can be made more effective in
delivering a robust assessment of the regulatory impact
on businesses’.
78 Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC
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Appendix 7 –
Speculative CVs for 2030

CV posted on Research-Link, 2030

Name Parveen S.
Location Mumbai/Lancaster
Last updated December 2029

About me
I’m a researcher who brings academic rigour to the early stages of social innovation projects, and real world
impact to academic research.

Looking for
Qualitative research opportunities within social care and public sector innovation, with a particular focus
services for older people in poor, rural contexts in the Global South. I’ve recently started a PhD-by-practice and
am looking for projects to use as part of my comparative study about designing elder care in India, the US and
Thailand.

Project contributions
- I helped Maharashtra State’s Social Care Team develop its strategy for designing and delivering older people’s
care services. (11 recommendations, 2 academic papers, 3 reports).
- I am a trainer, reviewer and mentor for the SIX Social Innovation Academy’s Accelerator Programme. (21
recommendations)

My research outputs and publications

2028 Conference paper: Co-designing care in multi-lingual and non-literate contexts. Care
Management Conference, Sydney.
2027 Conference paper: Participation frameworks for the rural poor. Elder Care Innovation
Conference, New York.
2026 Video paper: Designing services for visually-impaired people in rural India. Video article
in Social Service Innovation Review. (4 citations, 2 recommendations, 214 embeds).
2025 Panel discussion. Elder Care Innovation Conference, Singapore.
2024 Conference paper: Participatory social care design in low-literacy contexts.
Participatory Design Conference, Bangalore.

My education
2016-2020 BSc Social Work, University of Mumbai with one year work placement in rural India and
an exchange at Stanford.

2021-2023 MA Service Design at RCA, London.

2024-2028 SIX Academy professional modules on qualitative research for innovation, co-research
and co-design.
2029- Lancaster University. PhD in Design Policy. Distance learning/practice based.

Research appointments
2026-2028 Indian Social Research Institute. Frugal Innovation Fellowship.
Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC 79
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CV posted on Research-Link, 2030

Name Laura P.
Location Brazil/UK
Last updated April 2030

About me
Media editor Shared child-care Social design researcher
10% 30% 60%

My education
2014-2017 BA Media Design. PUC-Rio. Brazil
2019-2020 MSc Climate Change and Policy, Sussex University, UK
2022-2025 PhD Distributed Sharing Services. UCL. UK.

Project contributions
- I helped design and set up a new car sharing service launched in Rio in 2017. My role was user interface
design and user research. (114 recommendations, 3667 embeds, 3 films).
- I contributed to the behavioural change framework that underpins the Social Investment Seed Fund, against
which its investments are rated. (21 citations, 3 recommendations, 2 reports).
- I helped research and design a new climate change curriculum for primary schools in the UK. (19 citations, 2
films, 1 report, 2871 embeds).

My research outputs and publications

Films Car sharing in Rio (2017)
Climate change for primary education (2020).
Reports Get them early, get them for life. Behaviour change at primary school. (2023)
Academic papers 2024. Conference paper: Frameworks for understanding sharing services and behaviour
change. Behaviour and Policy Transitions Conference, London.
2023. Journal paper: A literature review on sharing services. Design Issues.
2021. Conference paper: A socio-cultural lens on sharing services. ServDes Conference,
Stockholm.
Book Forthcoming, 2026. Designing for sharing services. Sage.

Employment
Arup Transport Services, UK. (2027-)
Department of Transport, UK. (2025-2027)
Social Investment Seed Fund. Analyst. (2020-22)
ZipCar (Europe). Consultancy. (2023-25)
Rio CarSharers Service. User researcher (2025-2017). Advisory board. (2021-).
80 Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC
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CV posted on Research-Link, 2030

Name Mario R.
Location UK/Sweden
Last updated April 2030

About me
Researcher in place-based social innovation, with a specialism in digital systems design.

My interests
How to create digital ecosystems that nurture inter-personal relationships and support well-being.

Project contributions
Field 1 Participated in the design of a new digitally-enabled system that supported
Digital systems design social cohesion in urban neighbourhoods.

Field 2 Design researcher in the Milano Living Lab Consortium involved in creating
scenarios
Place-based innovation for future community interactions, budgeting and decision-
making processes and community action

Education
2014-2017 BA Digital interaction design. Plymouth University
2020-2022 MA Communication Design. Central Saint Martins, UAL
2023-2027 PhD Digital Social Design. Politecnico di Milano

Research appointments
2017-2020 Accenture Interactive, digital designer.
2019-2020 Digital research fellow. Sheffield School of Architecture.
2027-2030 Post-doctoral research fellow, Living Lab, Malmo University working on the
European Framework 25 funded project Places and Well-being Programme

Outputs Contributions to open source code sites.

Blog posts.
Journal articles in HCI and computing journals.
Conference papers at HCI and services science conferences.
Book chapters.
Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC 81
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CV posted on Research-Link, 2030

Name Rebeca J.
Location UK
Last updated July 2030

About me
Sociology teacher Doctoral student
70% 30%

Education
2014-2017 BA Management and Design Culture, London College of Communication 2019-2020 MSc
Inventive Methods, Goldsmiths, University of London
2021- PhD candidate ‘Anarcho-Materialist Philosophy, Micro-Devices and the Failure of
Behaviour Change Politics’, UniM-62 Social Innovation Network in collaboration with
the Ridings Regional Government, Design Citizenship Dept.

Projects
- I helped design and set up a new car sharing service launched in Rio in 2017. My role was user interface
design and user research. (114 recommendations, 3667 embeds, 3 films).
- I contributed to the behavioural change framework that underpins the Social Investment Seed Fund, against
which its investments are rated. (21 citations, 3 recommendations, 2 reports).
- I helped research and design a new climate change curriculum for primary schools in the UK. (19 citations, 2
films, 1 report, 2871 embeds).

My research outputs and publications

I help run an alternative social centre and community action hub in Huddersfield, exchanging citizen-research,
knowledge, skills and tools with similar organisations in the M62 region.
I convene the Ridings Philosophy-in-Action Salon.

Employment
2025-9 West Park Comprehensive, Huddersfield, subject leader for A-Level Social Innovation
and Local Politics (part-time)

Looking for
Collaborators to help create an online historical map of the individuals, institutions and corporations
through the rise and decline of design activism and social design, 2005-2020. I’m particularly interested in
understanding the dynamics of their agglomeration and dissipation and how their politics and networks might
be revived
82 Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC
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Research Team

Professor Guy Julier (Principal Investigator)

Guy Julier is Professor of Design Culture and the University of Brighton/Victoria & Albert Museum Principal
Research Fellow in Contemporary Design and Visiting Professor at the University of Southern Denmark.
Previously, he directed DesignLeeds, a research and consultancy unit at Leeds Metropolitan University
specializing in community projects, sustainability and regeneration. Guy is the author of several books
including The Culture of Design (3rd revised edition 2013) and is co-editor of Design and Creativity: Policy,
Management and Practice (2009).
[email protected]

Dr Lucy Kimbell (Co-Investigator)

Lucy Kimbell is a designer, researcher and educator. She is Associate Fellow at Said Business School, University
of Oxford, and Principal Research Fellow at the University of Brighton and at Central Saint Martins, University
of the Arts London. Lucy has published on design thinking and service design. She was previously Head of
Social Design at The Young Foundation where she developed the organisation’s internal design capability. Her
PhD at Lancaster University developed an inventive practice perspective on design for services and design for
social innovation. Lucy is the author of The Service Innovation Handbook (forthcoming 2014).
[email protected]

Jocelyn Bailey (Researcher)

Jocelyn Bailey is a researcher and consultant in the design and creative industries sector. Whilst at
Westminster think tank Policy Connect, she worked closely with Parliamentarians and the design community
to develop ideas around design policy, including writing the Design Commission report ‘Restarting Britain 2:
Design and Public Services’. Alongside the Mapping Social Design Research and Practice project, she has more
recently been working for BOP Consulting, with a range of clients in the creative and cultural sectors. In the
autumn Jocelyn will commence a PhD at the University of Brighton looking at the political implications of
design entering into matters of politics and governance.
[email protected]

Dr Leah Armstrong (Research Assistant)

Leah Armstrong is Research Officer at the Victoria and Albert Museum and University of Brighton. In April
2014, she completed an AHRC Funded Collaborative Doctoral Award PhD with the University of Brighton
Design Archives and the Chartered Society of Designers, which examined the structure, organisation and
identity of the design profession in Britain, 1930-2010.
[email protected]
Social Design Futures: HEI Research and the AHRC 83
5– Supporting Material

Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the contribution of all the interviewees and participants named in this
report who helped shape its recommendations and conclusions. The project was funded
by the AHRC and supported by the Victoria and Albert Museum Research Department
and the Centre for Research and Development (CRD), Faculty of Arts at the University
of Brighton.
The Social Design Talks were held at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts,
London, the House of Lords, the V&A, University College London and the Young
Foundation. We thank our hosts, the speakers and respondents. The talks also informed
this study and we acknowledge the ideas, conversations and speculations generated
through these and many other events that we have been associated with.

Leah Armstrong
Jocelyn Bailey
Guy Julier
Lucy Kimbell
– London, July 2014
In the UK, and globally, we are currently
witnessing a ‘social design’ moment.
This has emerged from the confluence of
several factors including the increasing
visibility of strategic design or design thinking,
social innovation and entrepreneurship,
austerity politics and policy shifts towards open
or networked governance.
This report was commissioned by the AHRC to
help guide its future plans for supporting design
research, one of the Council’s priority areas.
It presents the findings of a 9-month study of
opportunities and challenges for research in
social design.

© University of Brighton 2014. All rights reserved.

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