Changing the change

The conference preparation process has arrived at the crucial point. The Peer Reviewer Committee is finishing its work. In two weeks time we will have a clear view of the selected papers, and therefore of the specific themes into which they will be clustered. Now, what we can do, is to anticipate an overview on the whole conference programme’s architecture.

The Changing the Change core will be, of course, the selected papers presentations. As the Newsletter readers know, we received more than 300 abstracts (and this is a success!). At the moment we don’t know how many of them will be accepted by the Peer Reviewers. In any case, we are working on the hypothesis of having around 100-150 good papers accepted. These papers will be presented in 5-6 parallel sections with different, specific themes that will emerge from the clusterization of the selected papers. The main issue here, is how to conceive these clusters in order to promote real and productive discussions between the presenters and the public. Each section will be chaired by a member of the Steering Committee, who will coordinate it bringing also the contribution of his/her views and experiences.

Another important element of the conference is brought by the plenary session speeches and the opportunities for open discussions. We are still working on the preparation of this part of the programme, but some orientations are clear.

• Plenary session speeches. There will be a highly international group of 6 speakers who will be asked to draw an overview of their specific country or region for what regards design research and its contributions in “changing the change”.
• Round tables. There will be 2 round tables where invited discussants will be asked to bring their opinions on 2 relevant topics. These topics will be: Design, social innovation towards a sustainable wellbeing (round table 1) and Design, technological innovation towards a sustainable production (round table 2).
• Final module. It will consist of 4-6 parallel discussions on themes that will be defined by the same conference participants. Each one of these discussions will have a facilitator who, at the end, will be in charge to presenting the discussion’s results. At the end, in plenary session, the facilitators of the previous discussions will present the meeting’s outcomes.

As you can see, we are dealing with a rather complex conference’s architecture. The motivation of this choice is to find the most effective compromise between the different, equally important demands: to give to many good researchers the possibility to present their work and the time to discuss it; to listen to several important plenary session speeches; to participate to the debates on some specific topics and, finally, to have time and spaces for open discussions.

Any economy that intends to maintain its sustainability in time needs to explore, on a continuous base, scenarios and hypotheses for constant improvements and advance.
All stakeholders of an economic system need to devote attention and resources to innovate and create the conditions for their sustainable profitability while creating recurrent improvement of the quality of life.

This challenge is common to all type of economies in all geographical location. Micro and macro economies, all together concur to form an interdependent global economic system always in search of balance and sustainability.

In this environment “innovation” is an imperative, and all the stakeholders in the economic system are in search and in demand of innovation.

The challenge is the one to qualify innovation and rank it on a model that indicate it social nature and its social economic impact. This new model is relevant to redefine long term strategies and frame short term investment roadmaps.

To support the strategic process of testing options that optimize the balance and the coherent fit between short term innovative solutions and long term vision and direction it is relevant to develop and adopt new methods of research for innovation that fast, effective and economic.

Design research methods represents to day one of the new answers to this need. Influential Business magazines such as Fortune, Time, Business Week, Fast Company devote more attention to it disseminating the experiences and promoting its adoption.
Philips Design has pioneered in this field during the last two decades and has demonstrated , with the support of business consulting companies such as Mc Kinsey and Kaiser, how Design Research provide speed and focused effectiveness.

Design has it foundation in a techno-humanistic culture and performs its creativity interfacing connecting and integrating society, end user, technology and economy.
Autonomous fields of research such as societal foresight, Business spaces, Industry development and technology development and innovation are taken therefore in an accelerated integration by Design Research maximizing time and investments effectiveness. But even more important than this, Design Research builds on the core competence of the Design Culture providing tangible options for solutions and innovation that maximize end user, societal and customer centric effectiveness and are easier to be validated because of their articulated, visual and understandable representation.

Change is the one constant; the human race has throughout history been trying to understand change, contribute to it or change the direction of change. The design profession has of course been a major contributor to the change of products, places and systems, and design education has been predominantly concerned with providing students of design with the skills to analyze, design and develop new (changed) outcomes, concentrating on the change rather than reflecting on the action. This is not to say there has not been any concern or reflection on the role of the designer in a changing world.

Designs leadership in social issues and social responsibility, like business’s response, has mirrored the great activist movements. Indeed, it has been a recurring theme, with designers addressing a range of quality-of-life issues. In the 1960s, designers began to actively consider design’s wider implications for society. Several approaches emerged, including green design, consumerism, responsible design, ethical consuming, ecodesign, sustainability and feminist design. Accessibility and inclusively have also received a great deal of design interest and activity.

It seems now that the scale and complexity of change and its impact globally requires a different kind of action and reflection, locally and globally. The science of climate change has led us to consider the future with urgency, to try to imagine what ‘change’, or ‘no change’ will bring to the earth and to future generations. In order to do this we need to draw on all our knowledge, science and engineering, social science, arts and humanities, and here lies a role for design research.

Design thinking and design processes appropriate knowledge from anywhere in an endeavour to create solutions and alternative approaches to problems. Designing often has a catalytic effect on a situation or a group. Designers feel comfortable working in teams. Designers often offer alternative insights into the future, designers can help us imagine. It is this facility that offers alternative approaches to research.

Design researchers are able to contribute to research teams addressing multitude of problems. In the UK the research funding councils have been funding some research through what is called ‘Ideas Factories’. These Ideas Factories bring together academics (around 25); from across the disciplinary spread to addresses an issue alongside interested stakeholders. I have been involved with three; Mobile Health, Countering Terrorism, and Nutrition and Aging. They work together through a week to define current problems and offer research projects to address them, at the end of the week the best projects are funded. In each of these Ideas Factories there has been three or four design academics, and in each case they have been critical in the development of the research thinking and method.

There are now opportunities for designers to be in the centre of the problem or the issue and to lead the research. Much research being funded in the UK and in the EU is for collaborative multidisciplinary teams. My last project ‘Vivacity2020, Urban Sustainability for the 24 hour city’ included 32 researchers, scientist, social scientists and designers and 42 companies. The design aspect was very important we were able through graphics to model, complex issues and to illustrate the relationship between the science and the experience of city living and the design decisions that led to the built environment.

This later aspect illustrates yet another design competency which is crucial to academic research, that of completion and communication. Whilst most designers are trained to be divergent in their thinking at the onset of a problem, they need convergent thinking and verbal and visual communication skills to explain and communicate clearly the ideas they have. This is essential if we are to transfer the knowledge we gain through research to a wider community. Often designers can create visualizations of complex models, systems or prototypes that enable society to understand and apply them in practice.

At Lancaster University we have created ImginationatLancaster, an Imagination Lab comprised, in the main, of designers who work across the university with all faculty to address research problems in areas such as healthcare, education, open innovation, and sustainability and wellbeing. We will use our lab not only to collaborate across the university but with other academics worldwide and with other interested institutions and enterprises. We are not alone many other universities are capitalising on the strengths of design thinking in research.

Changing the Change offers the opportunity to consider the way in which we can continue to drive research through design in new directions.

“Things will develop in the opposite direction when they become extreme.” (Laozi, B.C. 500)
This is a simple dialectic idea of Laozi, a great ancient ideologist 2500 years ago. However, the philosophy still holds today and it has been widely indicated in the recent history of China.

No doubts, the modern production and consumption, as an expression of industrial society, which have been developed in the last two centuries is still the mainstream of change today, and it has been reaching the limit of resource on the earth (Extreme). Therefore, it has to be recognized to change the change, changing the direction of the development of society and human being towards sustainability as a rebound from the extreme (Opposite direction).

In this transition China is supposed to make a big contribution to the world. It’s not only because we could always discover some helpful thoughts and inspirations from Chinese ancient or traditional ideology and philosophy that are disappearing from everyday life, but also in the last 30 years China has transited from an impoverished country into a world factory, which helps in providing China the opportunity to steer its direction.

Fortunately, China is being in action! A new movement has been launched by the central government of China—Harmonious Society, which came into picture after the big decision of the shift from economic development to sustainable development. For example, on 31st December 2007, a new regulation was announced by the central government, “It will be forbidden to produce and consume the super-flimsy plastic shopping bags after June, 2008”. Then something interesting happened recently: the traditional bamboo shopping baskets came back to the urban life even before this June. It means people are very open to sustainable lifestyle. Besides the top-down policies, the bottom-up social innovations are emerging and promoted in China. Many diffused social enterprises (Creative Communities) and sustainable lifestyles have been observed such as Car Sharing, PinKe, Group Purchase, Community Supporting Agriculture and etc. Those promising cases implicate the initiatives and anticipation of sustainable lifestyles from general people in everyday life spontaneously.

What could design and design research contribute when “things will develop in the opposite direction” in the approaches of top-down and bottom-up? Laozi provides a big universal vision for the future. However, more indicated visions, proposals and tools have to be investigated and developed to realize the sustainable society.

Certainly, we are still facing paradox realities: On one hand, we understand that design and designers are supposed to provide more contributions for sustainable development; on the other hand, we still get excited on continuous development of market oriented tools and designs. Design is recognized to be an important program and profession to impact the development of society in positive way with social responsibility. However, designers in China are facing a difficult employment situation as design departments are often subordinate to others. Though the innovations and creativities (it’s the nature of design) as a top down policy are promoted all over China, the value of design (budget of design project) during the last 10 years has still been on the decrease. China has a long history and culture in “Making Goods” and philosophy of “Usage”, but the design education system was mainly imported from western countries where modern design had been born out of industrialization. For one thing, “Harmonious Society” and sustainable society has been a big vision of society in China; for another, Design seems part of problem more than part of solution for this vision.

In a word, China is a paradox focus between traditional philosophy, rapid industrialization and the ideal of harmonious society. Reality is complex and it is a part of reason why we need research work. Fortunately, Design is complex as well and that’s why design is expected to face the reality in advance. With the strong support from the local partner of China, Tongji University, there are active reactions in the academic and professional fields of design, architecture and civil society. Experiences from China would be expected to exchange and discuss in the conference.