Canadian Government Executive - Volume 22

December 2016 //

Canadian Government Executive /

Design

body of scholars and scholarship, applied

practices and new voices in design stud-

ies, carrying an optimistic and rigorous

response to the challenge of increasing

complexity in areas such as these faced by

policy makers, social scientists, designers,

strategists, and social innovators.

RSD has evolved into an international

community of inquiry with diverse in-

volvement across design and science dis-

ciplines, across geographies and cultures.

Presenters, cases and keynotes are se-

lected to bring attention to the variety of

practices across epistemic cultures, while

meeting in a space that supports convivial

and supportive dialogue across commu-

nities. RSD embraces design-led systems

approaches across scientific and design

knowledge practices (empirical, interpre-

tive, evidence-based and constructivist)

– the emerging field that has been called

Systems Design.

The Toronto Event

The first day opened at OCAD University

with fourteen half-day workshops ranging

from food security to innovation process-

es. Cyberneticist Paul Pangaro gave the

first keynote on “Designing Conversations

for Socially-Conscious Design.” A gallery

reception for delegates and presenters

featured over thirty posters (Gigamaps

and synthesis maps) most of which will be

available in the online proceedings.

RSD5’s second day was held at the

MaRS auditorium to showcase emerging

research in Process Innovation, Design

for Public Value, and Service Design for

Care and Wellness. The opening keynote

by systems thinkers Aleco Christakis and

Maria Kakoulaki presented a proposal for

Demoscopio, an emerging collaborative

citizen engagement project established

in Crete, Greece, supported by the mu-

nicipality of Heraklion. It is essentially a

dedicated citizen dialogue studio, an evo-

lution of Harold Lasswell’s social plan-

etarium proposal.

The presentation was followed by a

panel discussion on new directions in

public policy innovation. Matthew Men-

delsohn, Deputy Secretary to the cabinet

in the Privy Council Office, moderated a

captivating exchange on the “Craft of Pol-

icy Design.” Panelists included Maureen

O’Neil, President of the Canadian Foun-

dation for Healthcare Improvement; RSD

co-chair Alex Ryan, Manager of CoLab,

Government of Alberta; and Joeri van den

Steenhoven, Director of the MaRS Solu-

tions Lab. (Videos of the keynotes and the

panel sessions are available in the online

proceedings,

systemic-design.net/rsd-

symposia/rsd5-2016/).

Two inspirational keynotes completed

the day at MaRS. Ohio State’s Liz Sanders

presented new horizons for human-cen-

tred design research and Indiana Univer-

sity’s Erik Stolterman focused on interac-

tion design in the context of emerging

Interactivity Fields and Systems.

The third day of RSD was hosted at OC-

ADU. It was a busy day with 32 presenta-

tions, structured in three parallel tracks.

Work was presented on innovations on

Advanced Policy Design, (Systemic) Theo-

ry and Methods, Sustainability and Flour-

ishing, Design of Future Systems, Process

Innovation, Design for Complexity, Sys-

tem and Service Design, and Design for

Human-Centred Settlements.

RSD5’s final keynote was a special video

appearance from Santiago by renowned

systems thinker Humberto Maturana on

“Co-Designing for Society and Meta-Sys-

tems.” His talk raised fundamental ques-

tions that addressed the “meta-systems”

across all societies. Dr. Maturana spoke

to the planetary concerns for human fu-

tures, the necessity to mitigate systemic

impacts of population, the complications

of competitive cultures, and the call to de-

signers to reimagine these meta-systems.

Urging that people “do things together in

mutual respect” he encouraged a practice

of design that created “spaces for no com-

peting” by inviting, seducing, and convinc-

ing people to value their participation as

collaborators in government, society and

the world. Recognizing technology as an

instrument for human interaction and

therefore change, Maturana encouraged a

rethinking of design’s power to deal with

complexity and guide effective transfor-

mations of social systems.

Since its inception, RSD has provided

the primary venue for Systemic Design

scholarship and practice. Within its first

five years, RSD’s strong focus on applied

research-for-impact has led to dozens

of reported successful case studies from

practitioners and university projects. Rel-

evant papers in leading social science and

design journals are getting published and

cited. Systemic Design has become rec-

ognized in other scholarly conferences,

and has found its way into research part-

nerships and other symposia, such as the

DesignX symposium. With continued

guidance from its leading researchers and

a growing international community, we

expect to see the expanding recognition

of systems thinking modes and methods

applied in complex social design applica-

tions.

The keynotes, presentations, and post-

ers/system maps are available online

now, before the full proceedings, and most

of the live presentations have associated

sketchnotes, a unique feature of the con-

ference (see

systemic-design.net)

. The full

proceedings from RSD5 will be published

in early 2017.

eter

ones

is associate professor

at OCADU and lead chair of the

RSD5 Symposium.

. N

enad

ava

in OCADU’s Strategic Foresight and

Innovation Program and a public policy

consultant based in Toronto.