P03 SIG Design-led approaches to renewing public management and governance

Panel chairs

Corresponding and Review group chair: Dr. William Voorberg – Naturalis Biodiversity Center (william.voorberg@naturalis.nl)

Prof. dr. Albert Meijer – Utrecht University 

Dr. Sofie Perikangas – Vaasa University

Dr. Mateusz Lewandowski

Dr. Katarina Wetter-Edman

Description of theme

Shrinking resources, discontented electorates and complex problems of the last decade have prompted the public sector to look for new ways of governing, and developing and delivering public services. In this effort, design has been heralded as a central concept because of its people-centeredness that in a co-productive or co-creative way bridges the gap between public policies, services and citizens’ needs and expectations, and environmental challenges (Thorpe & Gamman, 2016; Thomas & Grace, 2008; Junginger, 2014; Mulgan, 2014, Sangiorgi, 2015). Consequently, all kinds of living labs, policy experiments and other ways of ‘learning-by-doing’ have gained popularity in public administration in recent years (Gascó, 2016). The general idea is that to co-create value with involved stakeholders and in particular service users to strengthen the people-orientation in public policy and services and collectively solve complex challenges (Oosterlaken, 2009; Tromp, Hekkert, & Verbeek, 2011). However, to what extent design offers answers to complex challenges, such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and dealing with poverty and ageing populations, is yet to be explored. For instance, discussions on climate and environmental justice frequently raise questions about who benefits from maintaining the current state and whether the 'right' stakeholders benefit from changes (Schlosberg and Collins, 2014).

Hence, this panel is dedicated to explore the principles, methodological underpinnings, challenges and practices of applying design-oriented approaches to the field of public management, policy and governance. In particular, the panel seeks to explore how design-led approaches contribute to realising ambitions around addressing grant challenges as mentioned above. Concretely, this panel aims to:

  • Enhance the methodological rigor and relevance of design methodologies in public management and policy environments;
  • Offer theoretical and empirical explorations of the conditions that support the effective application and integration of esign-led approaches within public sector and government;
  • Explore and evaluate the value and impact of design-led approaches to value creation in addressing grant public challenges;
  • Identify and discuss limitations and routes for improvement of design-led approaches for the innovation of public service provision and wider institutional change.

Description of kind of abstracts

This panel welcomes both conceptual and empirical papers. These may include papers reporting on living labs, public sector innovation labs, policy labs, and design experiments at different levels of the public sector system, including also simulations and testing of prototypes. Also, we might expect theoretical papers that lay the foundations or the theoretical frames for better integration, relevance and value of design-led approaches for public administration and public management. Finally, besides traditional paper presentations, we welcome contributors who wish to demonstrate a working prototype illustrating how this was developed and tested

close menu