An international network for
Research and Practice on Design in Policy Making
Welcome!
We are an interconnected global group of people researching and practicing across various design, policy, and innovation disciplines. We exist thanks to the initiative of two of our members who identified not just common interests at the intersection of the worlds of design and policy, yet in particular the prevailing institutional barriers they have faced in making progress in the field, be it in their academic or practical work.
We thus came together to discuss, stress-test and diffuse ideas about design as it adopts the role of a catalyst for the development of society-centered public policy making, implementation and services. Unlike the profiles you might find in other design, innovation, policy or research communities, we all are both researching as PhDs or recent PhD graduates, and at the same time practice in the domain as service designers, policy professionals or in design education.
What matters to us are our common interests, the ideas we want to advance in this world, and to come together as a group to act on what unites rather than divides us.
We want to generate possibilities beyond what existing institutional structures offer to us: to combine academic rigour with cutting-edge practices in a new way that enables the implementation of the most responsible and appropriate design and policy solutions, no matter the exact context or industry focus.
We look at design’s contribution to...
Human-centered research for policy, political and social innovation contexts
The deployment of new technologies in ways that enable positive social impact
Organizational and strategy innovation in the public sector and across the public and private one
Evidence-collection for policy decision-making
Social and policy entrepreneurship and institutional intrapreneurship
What we stand for
Combine practice and research in our own particular way, based on the different visions, approaches, and disciplines each member brings
Challenge current power structures, as well as knowledge-creation in policy and design
Overcome disciplinary boundaries in a way that allows for more comprehensive and systemic understandings of current societal challenges and how to solve them
Engage in diverse activities across community members, yet strive for connecting with people and organisations at every level
What we do
EXTERNAL-FACING
Knowledge-building
Academic and non-academic publications, and resources for researchers and practitioners
Engagement activities
Experience and knowledge exchange instances with the broader public
INTERNAL-FACING
Capacity building
By sharing approaches, tools, methods (research and practice) and feedbacks on ongoing work
Career-booster
By exchanging on professional trajectories and opportunities
Community of practice and support
Provide practice-related support; and exchange on approaches to PhD research and how to overcome obstacles linked to it
Who we are
Diana Pamela
Villa Alvarez
Program Coordinator
Fundación Saldarriaga Concha
Bogotá, Colombia
I am interested in..
The role of design in public policymaking
The design methods used in early stages of the policy cycle for the formulation of policies
Design prototyping and experimentation in policymaking
Sofía Bosch Gómez
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Northeastern University
Boston, USA
I am interested in..
The overlaps of design education and public and social innovation labs in Latin America.
Systemic design and digital public services.
The pedagogy of design research and methods for non-designers.
Federico Vaz
Public Sector Innovation Researcher and Consultant
MIT GOV/LAB
London, United Kingdom
I am interested in..
The use of Design approaches for public policy and service innovation.
The democratic implications of introducing Design for governance.
State reform to meet XXI century societal challenges.
Francesco Leoni
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Design Policy Lab
Dept. of Design, Politecnico di Milano
Milan, Italy
I am interested in..
The use of data for policy innovation: changes in the epistemology of policy-making
The impact of using data on governance and institutional settings
The interplay between digital data usage, qualitative data and heuristics in policy-making
Luis Garcia
PhD Researcher & Teaching Fellow
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, USA
I am interested in..
The legislation and public administration realities that influence public sector innovation in Latin America
The processes used for people’s participation in the context of public sector innovation
The role of design in supporting public servants and public sector institutions
Natalia Villaman
Doctoral Researcher, Designer & Mediator
University of Helsinki, Faculty of Social Sciences, Aalto University
Helsinki, Finland
I am interested in..
The role of facilitation as a civic skill to strengthen political efficacy and participatory democratic efforts.
Creating connections between design, social sciences and political sociology through multidisciplinary research and practice.
Politicizing participation and prompting the necessary conditions to create a culture in which power is challenged and distributed among those who participate
Beatriz Belmonte
Strategic Design for Public Purpose Technology
Better Public Services
Spain
I am interested in..
Digital government and public purpose technology, also called govtech or civtech.
People-centric evaluation for the public sector
Training and capability needed for the next generation of public policy designers
Brian Morgan
PhD Researcher
Belfast School of Art
Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK
I am interested in..
The role of design in ensuring communities are integral to policymaking
How design methods can be used to help shape more effective narratives
Design theory and mini-publics
Public movement-building (and the role of design)
Extended Network
John Herniman
Verena Kontschieder
