Conference Agenda

An increasing body of evidence suggests that the global emergence of Policy Innovation Labs over the last twenty years has marked a significant milestone in promoting-facilitating design-driven innovation in policymaking. However, the challenges associated with confining design expertise to the periphery of labs, and the focus of Policy Innovation Labs on national government, leaves regional and local policymaking in the trenches of legacy systems, processes, and skills. This limitation is problematic as it hinders the adaptation of local policies to address the unique challenges they face. Learning from, and moving beyond Policy Innovation Labs (considering their low cost-effectiveness), this paper explores how design can be integrated into place-based, local policymaking to support innovation. We address this by analysing a case study where participatory future scenario planning methods are deployed/adopted/adapted in informing local policy on sustainable transport in the context of the Eden Morecambe project in the North-West of England.

Good policy design calls for analysis of problems, how they might be addressed, and likely outcomes. Policy scholars and practitioners have devised methods that bring rigor to policy design through problem framing, assessment of potential interventions, and prediction of outcomes of those interventions. This pursuit of analytical and predictive rigor has often given short shrift to the insights of people whose lives are affected by current challenges and who will be impacted by policy change. We consider how lived experience might effectively inform policy design. Our theory of change is that creative engagement with citizens can generate insights of high value to the process of policy design. We introduce the Tomorrow Party – a design method for generating novel stakeholder insights regarding desirable future states. Initial findings from a series of pilots suggest the Tomorrow Party is a broadly applicable creative tool for advancing policy design.

Although design is a core activity of public organizations, the dominant perspective to this day is that public organizations are void of design. Existing design maturity models based on this perspective thus do not reflect, nor do justice to the practice of design in public organizations. In this conceptual paper we therefore propose to reframe design maturity as a matter of versatility and alignment - i.e. as an organization’s ability to tailor their design activities to the different design tasks it faces, while establishing productive interactions with other concurrent design activities. This offers a new perspective on how design can be fostered in public organizations. This paper proposes four ways in which this can be done. As such, it contributes to the evolving discourse on design in public organizations.

The concept of 'governance in silico' summarizes and questions the design and policy experiments with synthetic data and content in public policy, such as synthetic data simulations, AI agents, and digital twins. While it acknowledges the risks of hallucinations, errors, and biases, often reflected in the parameters and weights of the ML models, it focuses on the prompts. Prompts enable stakeholder negotiation and representation of diverse agendas and perspectives that support experimental and inclusive policymaking. To explore the prompts' engagement qualities, we conducted a pilot study on co-designing AI agents for negotiating contested aspects of the EU Artificial Intelligence Act (EU AI Act). The experiments highlight the value of an 'exploratory sandbox' approach, which fosters political agency through direct representation over AI agent simulations. We conclude that 'governance in silico' exploratory approach enhances public consultation and engagement and presents a valuable alternative to the frequently overstated promises of evidence-based policy.

Design has long demonstrated an interest in shaping society and the world for good. In Australia, there are 59,747 non-profit organisations that seek to do the same. Surprisingly, there is little research situated at the intersection of these fields. This research explores the potential remit of design in non-profit organisations and provides insight into where and how design practices may be beneficial to non-profit partners. This paper first thematically analyses the responses of 140 Australian non-profit organisations as they reflect on their strategic position and core activities. Drawing on these insights, we outline five thematic notions of value as it pertains to non-profits, their stakeholders and beneficiaries. Finally, we contribute a preliminary map of the Australian non-profit value ecosystem and speculate on design’s potential for integration.