ABOUT US
The social design research group was established in 2015 at the Department of Design & Communication / SDU
The group has a keen interest in how people can be involved in participatory design processes leading to social value for the individual and society at large. By social value, we refer to changes at a human scale that is felt to be beneficial for marginalized or vulnerable societal groups and communities.
Design research practice is essential for our work
We use design methods to make sense of wicked problems, as a way of engaging and co-designing with people and as a process of making artefacts or services enabling people to cope with difficult situations in life.
Through a number of research projects we have documented our ability to evaluate social design outcomes by bridging disciplines from the human and social sciences.
In order to secure meaningful implementation of our design, we work with organizations within the public and private sector from the earliest developmental phases.
RESEARCH AREAS
In our social design unit we are concerned with the urgent societal need for rethinking core services of the Scandinavian and European welfare states. In particular, our research projects lies within the following four areas:
NEWS
New Book Release on Design Activism
Design (&) Activism: Perspectives on Design as Activism and Activism as Design Over the past decade design activism has gained much traction (and hype) in design research. [...]
The book “Ny kulturteori” is out
Chapter on Design Culture, Participatory Design and Social Design in the book "Ny kulturteori" On June 28 the book Ny kulturteori will come out on Hans Reitzels [...]
Bloqs – unblocking conversations in prisons – presented at Central Saint Martins
SAC project part II completed in London We are happy to announce that Bloqs - an offspring of the SAC project - has now been completed by [...]
Paper presented at the 8th Nordic Design Research Conference
Navigating social design projects in the public sector On June 2-4 the 8th Nordes Conference was held at the new Aalto University in Helsinki, and we presented [...]
Thomas Markussen
thma@sdu.dk +45 93507196
Eva Knutz
evak@sdu.dk+45 93507135
University of Southern Denmark
Department for Design and Communication Universitetsparken 1 6000 Kolding, Denmark
