Community Engagement for Research, Power, Impact & Collaboration

In July I had an opportunity to participate three days Leapfrog Summer School titled “Exploring Community Engagement for Research: Power, Impact & Collaboration” organised by the Lancaster University. Financial Times defines community engagement as “the process of working collaboratively with community groups to address issues that impact the well-being of those groups”. According to the source, this type of engagement can develop the most innovative products and processes, as it is capable of assessing conflicting situations and enforcing thinking outside of the box when exploring innovative solutions. When applying, I felt that this summer school could be an excellent break from teaching service design, an opportunity for networking and get some inspirations for new readings. Getting an email requesting three slides on what community engagement means to me, made me think that this can be an inspiring event.

The event offered many inspiring ones to one conversation and exciting talks. One of them was from the La 27e Région, independent lab, which is transforming public policies by working with ten different French regional governmental bodies on many three weeks to six months long projects. One of them is improving thousands of rural railway stations by engaging sociologists and cultural mediators to zoom in and out for possible solutions like new transportation hubs offering different options for locals and newcomers. Their presentation rather than delivering insides from lab projects offered guidelines on how the civil servant can be a suitable partner to the designer. Another inspiring talk was from prof. Rachael Cooper, who claimed the importance of the engagement with academics, professionals and public communities when running several million pounds projects in order to achieve the maximum impact.

My three slides aimed to problematize the power of Finnish government as a decision and policymakers and their disengagement from refugees’ real life stories, and theirs limited control over their individual situation and ability to overcome this burden. My aim was to open up a discussion on what is designers’ role in these situations in the broader sense; unfortunately, the discussion remained inside Leapfrog case projects. However, I got some reading hints like Randall, A., Salsbury, J. and White Z. (2014) Moving Stories: The Voices of People Who Move in the Context of Environmental Change. Oxford: Climate Outreach Information Network. The last day we tested out with hands on activities some of the Leapfrog tools, which was insightful and enjoyable; however, I felt that organisers could use participants more in their favour when getting feedback on Leapfrog tools. Last but not least, I would like to thank the organisers for receiving Early Career Researcher bursary and for having the opportunity to be part of the Leapfrog Summer School.