Conference Agenda
Overview and details of the sessions of this conference. Please select a date or location to show only sessions at that day or location. Please select a single session for detailed view (with abstracts and downloads if available).
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PAPERS: Hope & Imagination Location: Appleton Tower, LT5 Zoom Link Accessibility: https://www.accessable.co.uk/the-university-of-edinburgh/central-area/access-guides/appleton-lecture-theatre-5-edinburgh Session Chair: Scott Schmidt, Georgetown University Session Chair: Sabine Junginger, Northumbria University | |
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Weaving relational dynamics: Civil servant agency in service design collaboration Aalto University, School of Arts, Design and Architecture, Finland This paper examines relational dynamics within a programmatic service design collaboration shaping public service development in Espoo, Finland. Over two years, a service design researcher collaborated with civil servants to co-create more inclusive employment practices. Drawing on iterative design interventions, observations, interviews, and informal everyday communications, reflexive analysis identifies three conditions that enabled collaborative design agency: relational alignment, infrastructuring coherence, and reflexive reconfiguration. These relational conditions highlight how civil servants actively advance design work and institutional learning. By bringing forward the concept of collaborative design agency, the study highlights how design in public services is an emergent capacity calling for greater attention to the agency, motivation, and situated expertise of civil servants. Recognising and intentionally nurturing such relational dynamics not only embeds design in everyday public administration but also contributes to the broader institutionalisation of design as a mode of governance. View Paper: https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.1285
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