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UCL Department of Science, Technology, Engineering and Public Policy

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Co-Design Lab

Co-designing with local communities to empower decision-makers and receive community buy-in on local government initiatives and engagement activities.

Group of individuals working on a project on a whiteboard
About the Lab

The Policy Co-Design Lab aims to facilitate dialogue across diverse backgrounds and needs and create local policy impact of UCL’s research, using creative practices (such as moving images, storytelling, ethnography, journey mapping, evidence safari, etc).

It will act as a lynchpin for strengthening our policy partnerships with local governments/ organisations and communities using co-design and grounds-up participatory approaches using the ‘contextualised’ collective needs and diverse knowledge of citizens with ‘lived’ experience.  

The Lab’s policy impact work will be driven by the needs and challenges of local communities and local government structures for developing policy solutions. This means extending existing policy dialogue and engagement with and between different councils (for example Waltham Forest, Newham) and other local organisations (such as SHIFT and Elevate) to integrate research and academic skills (including via UCL students) to solve policy design and implementation problems using grounds-up approach such as co-design. 

The overall ambition of the Lab at STEaPP is two-fold:

  • To create a centre for trans-disciplinary experts both from within and outside UCL to work with communities directly, inviting collaborative approaches when co-designing initiatives. To do this, the Lab brings together people from different backgrounds and disciplines including arts and humanities, social sciences, brain sciences and policy practitioners involved in working in co-design in communities.
  • To provide a model for engaging with policy co-design, and feedback into the innovative education and training of next generation of students on the new interdisciplinary programmes at UCL East (e.g. BA Creative Arts and Humanities and BSc Science and Engineering for Social Change).

Our current projects

We have recently led a co-design and evaluation activity on 'Welcome Hubs' for Waltham Forest Borough Council as part of the broader project with Bartlett with our cohort of 2nd year BSc Science and Engineering for Social Change students, who presented the recommendations on their embedded practice projects which focused on residents' lived experience to assess what works in these welcome hubs, what could be done better, and what are the gaps in service provision and delivery. A number of these recommendations have been accepted and implemented by the council.  

We are currently working with Newham, Waltham Forest, Croydon, and Hammersmith and Fulham Councils and local organisations such as Elevate, where we are using co-design with communities to better understand how urban neighbourhoods can be improved, develop cultural ecologies, tackle climate change, and formulate a holistic approach to supporting young people, to name a few.

 

About the Team

Nidhi Chaudhary is an Associate Professor (Teaching) of Development, Technology and Innovation Policy at UCL’s Department of Science, Technology, Engineering and Public Policy (STEaPP).

Rhiannon Van Vliet is a Policy Advisor in the Policy Impact Unit (PIU) and had previously worked in policy and research for police across Australia and New Zealand. 

Collaborators:

  • Tim Beasley-Murray (Arts Sciences), Director of the PhD in Creative Critical Writing and Academic Director of the Creative Humanities BA
  • Rebecca Birch (Arts Sciences), Lecturer in Creative Arts and Humanities & Moving Image Practice at UCL and is an artist, film maker and researcher.
  • Martin Holbraad, (Anthropology), Professor of Social Anthropology and Lead, Ethnographic Insights Lab, which develops human-centred solutions to complex challenges for clients across government, industry and public health.
  • James Jennings (UCL Innovation and Enterprise), focus on building and maintaining partnerships with different public sector organisations and UCL Experts.
  • Gemma Moore (Bartlett School of Environment, Energy & Resources), Associate Professor in Health, Wellbeing and Communities, her practice focuses on developing approaches and methodologies for the collective production of knowledge in the field of sustainable, healthy urban environments.
  • Kieren Reed (Slade School of Art), Professor of Fine Art and Founder of UCL Art Futures, his practice encompasses sculpture, performance and installation, from studies in form to the production of architectural structures.
  • Gregory Thompson (Anthropology), an award-winning theatre director creating productions that combine ensemble performances with innovative stagings and actor-audience relationships.
  • Peter Zusi (SSESS), Associate Professor of Czech and Comparative Literature at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, UCL and interested in Central European and comparative literature and culture.