DRS2016 DESIGN + RESEARCH + SOCIETY | FUTURE FOCUSED THINKING  

50th Anniversary International Design Research Society Conference 27-30 June 2016, Brighton, UK

Call for Papers: Additional Theme Session

Session Title: REFRAMING THE PARADOX - EXAMINING THE INTERSECTIONS BETWEEN EVIDENCE-BASED DESIGN AND DESIGN FOR THE PUBLIC SECTOR

SUB-CHAIR
Luke Feast, Aalto University, Finland
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CO-CONVENERS
Birger Sevaldson, Oslo School of Architecture and Design, Norway
Sabine Junginger, Hertie School of Governance, Germany
Peter Jones, OCAD University, Canada

Today we face complex challenges: preventing migrant deaths in the Mediterranean, delivering health and social care for an aging population, and dealing with the social impacts of growing economic inequality. Increasingly, designers are working to address such complex challenges and to deliver improved societal outcomes, for example, through the use of service design approaches to meet the needs of the elderly, the disabled, and the marginalised.

However, a paradox is emerging. On the one hand, governments are realising that they cannot address new complex socio-technical challenges in the way they approached them in the past, and so are turning to design for new strategies and techniques. On the other hand, policymaking and social design practices are increasingly being influenced by the positivistic view of research that underpins traditional evidence-based practice models. Furthermore, evidence-based practice and evidence-based design are seductive terms for those of us interested in advancing research-informed design. Therefore, we believe that critical examination of the underlying meaning and assumptions of evidence-based design and design for the public sector is warranted.

This additional theme session seeks to bring together current design research that critically examines the tension between the potential of design approaches to address governments’ most urgent challenges and the growing influence of evidence-based practice in design.

Questions we are interested in include:
(1) What constitutes evidence in the design of public services and policymaking?
(2) How is design being used to improve effectiveness in the public sector?
(3) What challenges and enablers are affecting capacity building of strategic design in the public sector?
(4) What ways of thinking and acting are special to evidence-based design practice?

We welcome submissions that concern any of the following aspects of evidence-based design and design for the public sector:
(1) Context – discussion of concepts and frameworks that underpin evidence-based design and design for the public sector;
(2) Case Studies – concrete illustrations of how design can drive innovation within public services and policymaking;
(3) Tools – practices and strategies of using design as a tool in the public sector. 

Deadline for full papers: 9th November 2015

CFP link
http://www.drs2016.org/additional-themes

Enquiries
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