Start semester
70 405 Design Driven Innovation in the Public Sector
Passed foundation level (BA-level) courses at AHO or equivalent, 180 ECTS.
Recommend for Service Design students. Since much of the course is focused on a Norwegian context, knowledge of the Norwegian language is an advantage - but not a requirement.
The course will give an introduction to design for the public sector and the role, mandate and network of Norway's most important actors.
The course structure:
Lectures, cases and discussions with a broad variety of case owners from the public sector, and designers and others working within the public sector.
Individual tasks + reading between lectures
The course will cover themes such as:
Introduction to Public Administration (PA), New Public Management (NPM) and New Public Governance (NPG): Introduction to concepts and basic understanding of public administration and services. How are public services organized, delivered and funded? How do new services arise? How does the dominant governance paradigm (PA, NPM, NPG) affect the design and delivery of public services?
User orientation: What does this mean for government agencies? Who is the user?
What regulations does the government impose on management in terms of user orientation? Managing ethics and privacy in public innovation projects - including sensitive personal data and regulations in the healthcare sector.
User opinion: What do we know about users/citizens? How to develop and disseminate knowledge about users and public service interactions? What records exist for user data?
Instrument and public procurement: What actors are relevant (Innovation Norway, Difi, DogA, Research Council), how do they work together, what rules apply to public procurement in innovation, what promotes and inhibits this innovation and what role design can take.
Innovation in municipalities: Introduction to the Samveis methodology. Introduction to the evaluation of impact, and value creation and the intersection between this and service design.
Innovation management: Examples of the culture and traditions. An introduction to “Stimuleringsordningen” and the projects involved in this government funded service innovation initiative for the public sector in Norway.
Innovation in government: How design is used in the public sector internationally through, for example, labs (La27e Region in France, MindLab in Denmark, Policy Lab in the UK, Laboratorio de Gobierno in Chile, Grounded Space in Canada) to compare "the Scandinavian way" with other countries.
Digitization as a driver for innovation in the public sector, e.g. welfare technology.
Students will gain an understanding of how public service development is taking place today, and how this differs from the development of commercial services. The role design can play in supporting policy making processes and in developing effective, sustainable and citizen-centred services will be explored during this class.
Lectures, cases and discussions with a broad variety of case owners from the public sector and designers and others working within the public sector.
There will be individual tasks and reading between lectures.
Literature
- Design for Policy (Christian Bason, 2014)
- Transforming Public Services by Design (Sabine Junginger, 2017)
- Civic Service Design Tools + Tactics (City of New York, 2017): http://www1.nyc.gov/assets/servicedesign/index.html
- Designing for Public Services (IDEO, Design for Europe & Nesta, 2016): http://5a5f89b8e10a225a44ac-ccbed124c38c4f7a3066210c073e7d55.r9.cf1.rackcdn.com/files/pdfs/Nesta_Ideo_Guide_DesigningForPublicServices_100117.pdf
| Form of assessment | Grouping | Grading scale | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Portfolio assessment (Vurderingsmappe) | Individual | Pass / fail | The student will be evaluated on smaller tasks as well as participation and contribution to discussions throughout the course. There will also be a final presentation and written reflection on a self-chosen theme that shall be communicated using the vocabulary and highlighting the characteristics and potentials that are focused on in the public sector as a target audience. |
| Workload activity | Comment |
|---|---|
| Attendance | The students are expected to take active part and be present in the studio, attend lectures and groupwork throughout the whole course. They are expected to attend all presentations, workshops and formal counsellings. |