Social Design

The term ‘Social Design’ is used to describe a wide array of practices and research that in different ways explore the complex relationship of design and society. 

The aim of the research field is to critically study this wide field of ‘Social Design’ and map its new trajectories, as the discipline evolves to include new domains and new practices. The IDR research team does not start from the assumption that social equals good and just design, but the researchers understand ‘Social Design’ to be social in at least three dimensions: its objects, its outcomes and its actors. 

The research field focuses on the social as the object for design and explores current and emerging systemic and social issues and their impact on society at large. 

In all these areas the research field understands design to play a key role in shaping the material and symbolic conditions of these issues, including how they are made visible (or not) and which ones are neglected ‘by design’.

Core Competences

• The research team explores the impact of emerging technologies to advance digital rights and public engagement on questions of digitalisation; 

• The researchers design and facilitate new deliberative and inclusive methods for public dialogue and to de-polarise public debates; 

• The research field engages with institutional and economic actors and citizens to use design for a ‘just transition’ and towards a ‘Caring Society’;

• The team uses ‘Speculative Design’ and future methods to imagine possible and alternative futures.