Through design practice and research, we support democratic processes with both central and local governments in the creation of innovative policies that prioritises and deeply involves the communities they impact.
Co-Creating Futures: Service Design in Rural Governance in Pujiang County, Chengdu
Spotlight on Ziwei (Zoey)Lin’s PhD in Progress Project Description This project focuses on the application of service design in rural governance and revitalisation in China, with Pujiang County in Chengdu as the primary field site. Integrating co-design, participatory design, design for policy, and speculative design methods, the project explores how design can empower grassroots governance…
Design in Local Government Playbook
Dr Lara Salinas has been awarded an AHRC Innovation Scholar grant to advance design excellence in the public sector. Lara will be seconded to London Borough of Camden’s Strategy and Change team, from where she’ll collaborate with the national Local Government Service Design Network to co-create a Design in Local Government Playbook. Research question Playbook…
Societal Readiness Framework
Purpose SoRA is a framework to support reflexive assessment and improvement of Societal Readiness. SoRA has been created in collaboration with experts, innovators and policy makers. The assessment consists of four dimensions that relate to carbon reduction, social justice, social good and alignment with preferable future systems. SoRA facilitates alignment with carbon reduction targets, better…
Design|Policy Research Network
Image: cover of the final report, photo courtesy of Lucy Kimbell 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…
Climate Emergency Visual Action Plan
Purpose Climate Emergency Action Plans are highly complex, involving multiple actors from across sectors. The most immediate challenge, to enable collaboration both inside the local government and with external organisations, is to communicate the multiple lines of actions and operational objectives. This information is held in different parts of the organisations, and in documents with…
Good Help for Families in Camden After Covid
Camden Family Changemakers was a co-design project carried out in 2021 between Camden Council’s family services team, parents and family members residing in Camden, London College of Communication (LCC) MA Service Design and MA Data Visualisation students, two MA Service Design alumni, five academic staff members, the Service Futures Lab at LCC and the UAL’s Public…
UAL Climate Studio
UAL Climate Studio is a 6-months collaboration between three UAL colleges to develop an urban network of citizens, organisations and government to support collaborative place-based climate action.
CoDesign4Transitions
CoDesign4Transitions is a four-year doctoral network (2024-28) that brings together eight universities in seven countries (Belgium, Denmark, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Spain, UK) who will recruit and supervise a cohort of 13 transdisciplinary Doctoral Candidates (DCs).
Co-design your place Erasmus+
The programme prepares young people (<30) to be changemakers, designers and leaders in regenerated areas. During 18 months of intensive, educational and practical workshops, we designed and implement two services supporting the urban renewal by social inclusion, created a publication and a handbook, and hosted a conference and workshops. Project Handbook: Grimaldi, S. et al.…
Service Futures Lab 