Design|Policy Research Network

The collaborative, cross-disciplinary research network organised workshops and engagement sessions to consolidate and better articulate the emerging relations between research and practice in design and public policy processes. Research contributions include a novel, evidence-based and contextual understanding of the potential for design in relation to policy – as outlined in published outputs. Led by UAL (Professor Lucy Kimbell) and University of Manchester (Professor Liz Richardson), the network worked closely with the cross-government Policy Design Community, which includes over 75 local and central government organisations and over 500 individual members.

The UK is a leader in the use of design in government and policy and there is a growing range of practice and research connecting design and public policymaking – such as service design, interaction design, communication design, urban design, and strategic design and the emerging fields of policy design and ‘design for policy’. Over an 18 month period (2022-2023), the network engaged several hundred people including policy makers in central and local government, design consultants alongside academics and doctoral students working across design and policy studies.

Published outputs (specifically the final report by Lucy Kimbell, Catherine Durose, Ramia Mazé and Liz Richardson) sets out a clear vision to underpin the further development of design in government and public policy. Specifically, we articulate three distinct kinds of relations between design and policy, and we propose a series of recommendations that are already taking various forms since the network funding ended. 

Date:

2023-24

Funder:

Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)

Team:

Network leads: Professor Lucy Kimbell (Central Saint Martins, UAL) and Professor Liz Richardson (Department of Politics, University of Manchester)

Other UAL Staff:

Ramia Mazé
Lara Salinas
(Complete list of UAL and other participants in the final report)

Publications:

Kimbell, L., Durose, C., Mazé, R. and Richardson, L. (2023) Design and Policy: Current Debates and Future Directions for Research in the UK: Report of the AHRC Design|Policy Research Network. London: University of the Arts London ISBN: 978-1-3999-7069-3 https://ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk/id/eprint/20849/

Kimbell, L., Durose, C., Mazé, R., and Richardson, L. (2022) ‘Design for public policy: Embracing uncertainty and hybridity in mapping future research,’ in Proceedings of the Design Research Society Conference DRS (Bilbao, Jun-Jul). https://ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk/id/eprint/18694/

Links

About the network https://www.arts.ac.uk/research/current-research-and-projects/design-and-policy-network .

About the final report https://www.arts.ac.uk/about-ual/press-office/stories/design-and-policy-current-debates-and-future-directions-for-research-in-the-uk

LinkedIn group https://www.linkedin.com/groups/12656362/