Mobilising collective action through design-led approaches
Leading public sector innovation to mitigate the climate crisis
Words by Arup | published in Transitions to EWSC
1. Rethinking Innovation projects
Enabling Water Smart Communities (EWSC) is an innovation project exploring the relationship between integrated water management (IWM) and housing development to unlock new opportunities for collaboration, delivery and long-term stewardship, generating wider benefits with and for communities.
Funded through the Ofwat Water Breakthrough Challenge Fund Round 2 — Transform Stream, EWSC is one out of the seven projects that are asked ‘to spark ambitious innovation and enable new approaches and ways of working, equipping the water sector to address the big challenges facing the sector, driving far-reaching and long-lasting benefits to customers, society and the environment across England and Wales now and into the future.’
“System innovation is needed to meet systemic challenges” Winhall & Leadbeater, 2020
Driving innovation has been one of the core ambitions within the water sector over the last years as it is considered a “vital means of delivering long-term resilience” (Ofwat, 2017). And while facing unprecedented pressures in the shape of climate change and population growth, there is an increased demand of exploring innovation in areas other than technology. Innovation is not only about improving and sustaining a competitive advantage, but also about creating a culture and environment that allows changes to take hold and work in practice. In other words, it is about systems change.
EWSC is seeking to build a better understanding of how deliberate systems change can be mobilised through cross-sectoral collaboration and to provide the right guidance and tools to enable water smart communities.
In doing so, the project is designed to be ‘innovative within itself’ — in its design, governance and processes — and to function as a testing-ground for:
- New ways of working collaboratively across disciplines and sectors
- Collective knowledge building and sharing to innovate together
- Integrative thinking, holding the tension between opposing constraints or points of view, and generating new models
- Embracing a reflexive practice, taking in diverse information and adapting ideas in an iterative way.
2. Why is a design-led approach needed?
Given the innovative and experimental nature of this work, we are taking a design-led approach, using systemic design to mobilise diverse stakeholders under a shared frame of reference — aligned around a vision, objectives and shared definition of key concepts — for collective action.
Systemic design helps to address complex issues holistically, by unpacking their wider context and exploring the forces and interrelationships that shape the issues today and in the future. It regards cross-sectoral collaboration as the key to draw new connections between different systems to open opportunities for combined impact and system innovation.
Moreover, systemic design encourages linking existing and new projects and initiatives together through the co-creation of short-, mid-, and long-term visions. Collectively, this ecosystem of linked projects serves as both systems interventions and steps along transition pathways toward co-envisioned futures (Irwin, 2019). In doing so, efforts are amplified and the potential to ignite exponential change becomes greater.
The EWSC project sees itself part of a wider ecosystem of projects that are exploring the concept of water smart communities as a catalyst for system change and transitioning towards climate resilient communities and thus to a more sustainable and equitable future. It is structured based on the Design Council’s systemic design framework, which is a non-linear design process of divergent and convergent thinking to drive positive change in four phases: Explore, Reframe, Create, Catalyse and Demonstrate.
The systemic design framework is a widely used methodology that encourages creativity and innovation while focusing on the core issue and its impact on people and the planet. As a highly collaborative team practice, it requires building a shared understanding of the project’s aims and objectives as well as agreeing upon ways of working and inviting multiple perspectives to form a course of action even where there is no consensus. This is captured in the EWSC Design Principles.
3. EWSC Design Principles
The design principles are a set of guiding values that act as a compass throughout the work. They have been co-created by the core research group at the beginning of the Discovery phase in a workshop.
The design principles set out our intentions and shape all design and delivery. By upholding the integrity of our values, we can ensure that the best decisions are made in a consistent manner, scaling across many decisions, and decision-makers.
As a set of criteria to use while working together, design principles help to align all stakeholders involved in the project, keeping everyone on the same path to reach the desired outcomes.
Key processes and decisions should be guided by and periodically sense-checked against the principles.
4. Ways of collaborative working
The existing and emerging challenges with which the water and housing sector are confronted with are highly complex, dynamic and ambiguous. Also described as wicked problems, issues such as flood risk, water scarcity or affordable housing are challenging because of the high degrees of social complexity which permeate them.
Wicked problems can have innumerable root causes and therefore cannot be addressed by traditional problem-solving approaches nor by a single solution (Rittel & Weber, 1973).
It is important to acknowledge the need to explore not just technological and design challenges, but also issues with current practices, culture, behaviours, policies, governance, ownership and financial models. By involving all affected stakeholders, we are able to co-create innovative solutions that tackle organisational and societal complexity.
Making deliberate systems change happen is a collaborative endeavour across sectors; moving from siloed approaches to collective action.
Successful system innovation cannot be driven by a single team or organisation. It requires a larger community motivated by a shared purpose to instigate change, mobilising a movement for systems transition.
Working together across different sectors and disciplines allowed us:
- to shift between different domains, scales, actors and time frames,
- to establish a shared view of today’s delivery context,
- to tease out plausible futures,
- to imagine new relationships and unlock value,
- and understand how to accelerate change collectively.
Methods and Activities used:
- Desk Research
- Expert Interviews
- Focus Group Discussions
- Systems Mapping and Stakeholder Mapping
- Online Survey
- Collaborative work sessions
- Co-creation Workshops
This article is written by Arup, a collective of designers, architects, engineering and sustainability consultants, and experts dedicated to sustainable development. Arup contributed public innovation and strategic design expertise, beginning the transition design process.
As Discovery research lead and series editor, Arup’s Transformation & Design Studio led the multi-partner research effort by applying their public innovation and strategic design expertise.
This is one of a series of insight articles produced as part of the EWSC innovation programme, exploring how integrated water management can be delivered through innovative housing and stewardship models. For an overview of the project, latest news or to get in touch visit https://www.ewsc.org.uk/.
