Hello!

mieke 1 Comment

u-mag-edit

My name is Mieke van der Bijl-Brouwer and I am a researcher, designer and educator in human-centred & systemic design in the context of social and public sector innovation. I believe that we need to develop a better understanding of the creative practices that are required to address today’s complex societal problems. As a Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Transdisciplinary Innovation at the University of Technology Sydney I therefore study these practices, contribute to the development of methods and tools, and share this knowledge through my publications, website and education. My teaching is mainly focused on UTS’ Bachelor of Creative Intelligence and Innovation, a world-first, future-focused transdisciplinary degree. To assist public and social sector organisations in addressing complex societal problems I have co-founded a social and systemic design agency called RAD social design.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you would like to know more and/or would like to collaborate. I am particularly interested in collaborating with:

  • public and social sector organisations who are looking for support in tackling complex societal problems
  • social design and innovation agencies who would like to exchange knowledge on design innovation practices
  • academics who would like to collaborate on research and education projects

From designing in teams to designing in networks

mieke Leave a comment

Many have turned to the application of design practices when addressing complex societal problems. One of the differences between ‘traditional’ design practice and design in a complex societal context is that design no longer just happens within specialized teams. Instead, designing has broadened to what Ezio Manzini calls ‘a designing network’, where design roles and skills are distributed over multiple stakeholders who are actively involved in making decisions. This fundamentally changes the roles of designers, the people they work with, and arguably the processes they run. While I visited MaRS Solutions Lab earlier this year, Claire Buré and I started to explore the concept of a designing network to draw new insights on collaborations for social innovation. We summarised our insights in this blog.

Slides talk Social Design Sydney – Systemic design for public and social innovation

mieke 2 Comments

Earlier this week I shared some of my research about systemic design in public and social innovation, and discussed the implication of systemic design for systems change with Tim Tompson at the Social Design Sydney event ‘Systems change with systemic design‘. You can download a copy of my slides here: 180925systemicdesign_mieke

And watch a video of the talk here:

 

Transdisciplinary Innovation – Technology Innovation Management Review

mieke Leave a comment

I enjoyed guest editing a special issue on Trandisciplinary Innovation with co-guest-editor and colleague Martin Bliemel. It has certainly expanded our understanding of the topic and it has been great reading all the contributions. The issue is open access and online available here. One of the papers is written by my PhD-student Mariana Zafeirakopoulos, and describes the learning experiences of professionals who have shifted from using positivist rule-based practices (such as science) to transdisciplinary innovation methods.

Learning together in social innovation

mieke Leave a comment

The amount of people involved in social innovation is rapidly increasing. Many people are trying to improve people’s lives and create more resilient and sustainable societies through innovation in social enterprises, innovation labs, grass root organisations, and within social and public-sector organisations. Many great examples exist of successful social innovation, as well as many failed initiatives. There is still a lot we need to learn about how we can advance this field and I believe that learning together and sharing knowledge is one of the keys to achieve this. In this blog I reflect on how we learn, and how we can learn from each other in social innovation, based on a one-month visit in May 2018 to the MaRS Solutions Lab in Toronto as International Fellow.

Learning together in social innovation – a reflection on my visit to the MaRS Solutions Lab

Transdisciplinary Innovation & Design

mieke Leave a comment

This month I celebrate my first anniversary working at UTS’ Faculty of Transdisciplinary Innovation. Transdisciplinary Innovation, that’s two buzzwords in a row. Enough has been said about the overuse and abuse of the word innovation, but transdisciplinarity is quickly catching up. We now have transdisciplinary practices, research, degrees, art, events, and labs. But what is transdisciplinarity? Do we really need it? What are its challenges? And what does design have to do with it?

In this blog I share my thoughts about Transdisciplinary Innovation and Design.

Is designing really so much fun?

mieke 1 Comment

Design and its successors “design innovation” and “design thinking” are often presented as something that is fun and engaging. And designers and design innovators often have an image of happy-go-clappy-postit-sticking-enthusiasts (using the words of Kennisland’s Marlieke Kieboom). But is designing really such an enjoyable and exciting activity?

As part of a study into design-led social innovation practices I recently interviewed people who have led or participated in design projects in a social innovation context, often for the first time. These people expressed many emotions about their design experiences that did not sound like fun at all, including feelings of frustration, confusion, irritation, fear and despair. And to be honest, this comes as no surprise. I’ve experienced it myself, I’ve seen it with my students, and I’ve seen it with the people I work with. In this blog I will explain where these negative feelings might come from, and why we shouldn’t ignore them.

(more…)