Design|Policy Research Network
Lead Research Organisation:
University of the Arts London
Department Name: Social Design Institute
Abstract
Design practices and methods, and professional designers, are increasingly visible in public policy processes in national, regional and local government as well as in broader policy ecosystems in particular public service design. The outcomes, consequences and implications of this development are as yet little discussed. In design research, and in political science, recent research has attempted to bridge this divide with nascent research communities in the form of special interest groups and conference panels.
This 18-month network brings together these two academic constituencies in a systematic way to identify the tensions and resistances between the two domains, identify potential where capacities of design can be more effectively leveraged, and map out an agenda for future research and knowledge exchange. The network complements other initiatives in academia and practice by critically examining the concepts and methodologies at the intersection of design and political science, as well as identifying untapped potential for using design in public policy. By building capacity across and within these research communities, alongside practice, new understandings as well as new projects can be developed. This is relevant and timely as social and public policy issues require new forms of public administration practice, changes to institution design, ways of engaging with publics and forms of democratic debate. Over 31 people including established researchers, ECRs and PhD students, as well as practitioners working in government departments, think tanks, consultancies and civil society organisations, have expressed interest in being part of the network.
Organised through 4 interactive workshops (two in London at UAL, two at Manchester, both blended to allow face to face and online participation), the network will also exist through threaded online discussion on digital platform Slack. Through invited provocations at three workshops with leading researchers and practitioners (with video and transcripts made available on a blog), alongside creative, participatory activities, the network will consolidate and articulate a shared understanding of the potential, consequences and implications for design in public policy processes, informed by research in several fields (design research, the humanities, political science and policy studies). A fourth workshop will allow the network to synthesise understanding of key debates and also to sketch out designs for future collaborative research projects. These insights will form the basis of a public report co-authored by the PI, CI and Steering Group and materials for a public blog to disseminate findings to academics and practitioners.
Finally through two events, one aimed at the UK Civil Service co-organised with Policy Lab and Department of Work and Pensions, and one public event, co-organised with the Policy Institute at King's, key findings and directions for future research and knowledge exchange will be disseminated. The network organisers anticipate that members, including the steering group, will build on the outcomes to collaboratively craft new, cross-disciplinary research projects (e.g. for UKRI or Horizon Europe), as well as continuing dialogue through scholarly communities, as well as via fora such as Slack.
This 18-month network brings together these two academic constituencies in a systematic way to identify the tensions and resistances between the two domains, identify potential where capacities of design can be more effectively leveraged, and map out an agenda for future research and knowledge exchange. The network complements other initiatives in academia and practice by critically examining the concepts and methodologies at the intersection of design and political science, as well as identifying untapped potential for using design in public policy. By building capacity across and within these research communities, alongside practice, new understandings as well as new projects can be developed. This is relevant and timely as social and public policy issues require new forms of public administration practice, changes to institution design, ways of engaging with publics and forms of democratic debate. Over 31 people including established researchers, ECRs and PhD students, as well as practitioners working in government departments, think tanks, consultancies and civil society organisations, have expressed interest in being part of the network.
Organised through 4 interactive workshops (two in London at UAL, two at Manchester, both blended to allow face to face and online participation), the network will also exist through threaded online discussion on digital platform Slack. Through invited provocations at three workshops with leading researchers and practitioners (with video and transcripts made available on a blog), alongside creative, participatory activities, the network will consolidate and articulate a shared understanding of the potential, consequences and implications for design in public policy processes, informed by research in several fields (design research, the humanities, political science and policy studies). A fourth workshop will allow the network to synthesise understanding of key debates and also to sketch out designs for future collaborative research projects. These insights will form the basis of a public report co-authored by the PI, CI and Steering Group and materials for a public blog to disseminate findings to academics and practitioners.
Finally through two events, one aimed at the UK Civil Service co-organised with Policy Lab and Department of Work and Pensions, and one public event, co-organised with the Policy Institute at King's, key findings and directions for future research and knowledge exchange will be disseminated. The network organisers anticipate that members, including the steering group, will build on the outcomes to collaboratively craft new, cross-disciplinary research projects (e.g. for UKRI or Horizon Europe), as well as continuing dialogue through scholarly communities, as well as via fora such as Slack.
Publications
| Description | Discussions amongst academics and practitioners during the network events revealed a number of debates and dilemmas, specifically: • Demand for clarifying how design is distinctive in its contribution to policy-making; • Varied relationships between design and policy-making; • Untapped potential of design in relation to policy-making; • Challenges of using or implementing design approaches for policy-makers. Even within the academic research landscape, there is a lack of clarity about the distinctiveness of design for policy-making. We found that: • Despite the growing interest in research at the intersection of design and public policy (e.g., special issues of journals, Special Interest Groups in scholarly communities and conference tracks which bring together different perspectives, including cross-disciplinary research), academic research on design and policy-making is still at an early stage of development; • The articulation 'design for policy', developed over the past decade, is problematic, while there is a longer history of 'policy design' in studies of public policy and public administration; • Despite growing academic analysis of the use of design expertise, methods and techniques in policy-making, these do not capture its distinctiveness; • The academic approaches for creating the evidence base needed to assess the impact of design on policy-making are limited. The current methods do not make sufficient use of the potential for transdisciplinary collaboration across design research, political science and policy- making, nor draw extensively enough on teams or sites of practice in government. Given the lack of understanding of different relations between design and policy, we propose a heuristic comprising three distinct kinds of relations between design and policy: • Design as a tool for policy-making; • Design as a practice of improvising within policy-making; • Design regenerating policy-making. |
| Exploitation Route | The outcomes were (a) new understandings of the relations between design and public policy making: (2) new relationships between design researchers and political scientists, (3) new relationships between researchers investigating policy design and design for policy, and policy makers and designers working in and for government, in particular in the UK Civil Service; and (4) recommendations for the Civil Service, UKRI, universities and design professional organisations. |
| Sectors | Communities and Social Services/Policy Creative Economy Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software) Government Democracy and Justice |
| URL | https://www.arts.ac.uk/?a=418648 |
| Description | At a time when civil servants and local government officers are building up capabilities associated with policy design in UK central and local government, there is now, as a result of this AHRC Network, a better understanding that (a) policy design and design for policy are live research fields, (b) to which cross-disciplinary perspectives from studies of design and political science are relevant; and (c) that several relations between 'design' and 'public policy' are possible. The findings have been used to shape a national Public Design Review, which engaged across the UK with many stakeholders between 2023 and earl 2024 to be published in 2025, to develop an evidence base and new articulation of 'public' design in government in the UK. The relationships across UK researchers (through the network) and the network's report and events provided confidence to the Civil Service of the depth of research needed, which resulted in them commissioning a Literature Review and Synthesis Report as part of the Public Design Review. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2022 |
| Sector | Government, Democracy and Justice |
| Impact Types | Policy & public services |
| Description | Membership of Delivery Board of Policy Design Community, UK Civil Service |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Participation in a guidance/advisory committee |
| URL | https://www.gov.uk/service-manual/communities/policy-design-community |
| Description | Organised academic peer review of Civil Service policy design training materials |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Impact | The changes were improvements in the quality of the Policy to Delivery course delivered inside government (by practitioners for practitioners). See the blog post on the Policy Design Community for more details. |
| URL | https://publicpolicydesign.blog.gov.uk/2022/11/03/launching-governments-first-ever-multidisciplinary... |
| Description | Shaping and Informing the Civil Service Public Design Review |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Contribution to a national consultation/review |
| Description | Policy Design Community |
| Organisation | Civil Service |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | The cross-government Policy Design Community is convened by the Policy Profession Support Unit in the Civil Service. This is a network of >700 mostly civil servants and local government officers from across >40 government organisations in the UK, many of them working in policy labs, policy design units or design teams. It organises events, training and other forms of dialogue about the potential and implications of design in policy making in the UK. It publishes a blog at https://publicpolicydesign.blog.gov.uk Blog posts produced by the research network (including write ups and video from its four workshops, and 2 dissemination events, of which one was specifically for those in government) were published on the Policy Design Community government blog Lucy Kimbell and Liz Richardson were invited to join the Delivery Board of the Policy Design Community, meeting quarterly since early 2023 Lucy Kimbell and Liz Richardson organised academic peer review by 12 members of the network of learning materials developed by the Policy Design Community, (for delivery by and to UK civil servants) |
| Collaborator Contribution | Several of the invited speakers at network events were civil servants or local government officers who are members of Policy Design Community. Several others participated in workshops. Two civil servants were on the Advisory Board of the network Drafts of the network report were shared with members of the Policy Design Community leading to useful feedback for the authors. Members of the Policy Design Community Delivery Board gave feedback on insights and frameworks developed by Kimbell, Richardson and co-authors which shaped publications for academic conferences and a journal paper in development |
| Impact | The network's report was co-produced with the Policy Design Network. The collaboration is multi-disciplinary in that the academics in the network and the policy and practice professionals working across government (at all levels) come from backgrounds in design and public policy. |
| Start Year | 2022 |
| Description | Dissemination event for practitioners |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | This event brought together people in professional practice to hear findings and recommendations from the network, with invited responses from design research, local government and design practice. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://publicpolicydesign.blog.gov.uk/2023/12/07/the-challenge-now-for-design-in-policy/ |
| Description | Linked In Group |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | As part of the AHRC Network, we set up in May 2022 a Linked In group which people could request to join. By the end of the AHRC network, there were over 700 members (see our end of network report for an analysis of who these members were).The research team behind the network decided to continue it and by 12 March 2024, there were over 970. It is now an informal collaboration with the Policy Design Community, a cross-government initiative. Several members of this Community are now joint 'managers' of the Linked In group alongside 3 of the academic leads from the network. The purpose of the Linked In group is to disseminate information and share perspectives relating to research at the intersection of design and public policy. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022,2023,2024 |
| URL | https://www.linkedin.com/groups/12656362/ |
| Description | Network dissemination event for Civil Service |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Civil servants including policy makers from across government, including the UK's several policy labs or policy design teams, took part in an event which shared findings from the Network report. Invited speakers included AHRC Executive Chair Prof Christopher Smith and Andrew Knight, head of the Policy Design Community, and 2 of the academics involved in the network. The discussion revealed interest in better understanding of and collaboration with academics to build design capabilities in government. The event was summarised in a blog post on the Policy Design Community blog. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://publicpolicydesign.blog.gov.uk/2023/12/07/the-challenge-now-for-design-in-policy/ |
| Description | Service Design in Government conference |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Lucy Kimbell took part in a public dialogue with Andrew Knight, head of the Policy Design Community led by the UK Civiil Service at a session of the Service Design in Government Conference in Edinburgh in September 2022. This is a practitioner conference that brings together those working in and for government in service design roles. The discussion shared perspectives on policy design and design approaches. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://govservicedesign.net/archive/2022 |