The Challenge
The people, knowledge, ideas, infrastructure and networks that make up the UK’s research and innovation system support both economic growth and the richness of our culture.
Yes, but how these people and their research is funded needs to be fair (and seen to be fair).
This government agency had a clear ministerial remit to change the way funding was allocated to universities and research institutes. For years, the bulk of the funding had gone to Russell group institutions and it was felt that taxpayers money should be disbursed more intelligently and in such a way as to promote equity in research and educational opportunity.
My role on the project
I was retained as an independent service design consultant by the integrator tasked with building the digital solution that would allow researchers to apply for funding. I joined a small team which also included interaction and content designers as well as user researchers.
What I did
As I worked though our initial discovery phase, running challenge setting exercises, creating personas, building journey maps, and understanding the emotions and constraints of the end-user applicants who would need to use our new system, it became apparent that the digital delivery unity was building tools without understanding exactly what problems they were solving.
The yellow 'Circle Line' represents the policy team. They are in a continuous iteration loop where they define problems in response to strategy imperatives. They meet twice a week, and delivery teams engage with them at various key points in the process.
Given the time previously invested on the transformation, and the complexity of the stakeholder landscape, my stakeholder had elected to push ahead while intentionally disengaging with their policy unit.
Based on what I could assess, I decided to set up a policy lab which would allow the digital delivery and policy teams to collaborate, producing both policy and digital tools as part of one, concerted effort.
Successful outcomes
Using service design methods in a policy context is a thing that’s gaining traction. As a result of the collaboration between policy and delivery, many policy projects are delivering better outcomes at lower cost.
Similar projects are being scaled and achieving savings, and as these policy design tool-kits and methods are shared across policy making teams, the positive impacts will be widely felt.
Can I help you solve a similar problem? dug@goodlookslikethis.com