Change Agents: Blueprints for Interinstitutional Collaborations in Social Design
Bori Fehér, Erzsébet Hosszu, Guim Espelt Estopà, Ariel Guersenzvaig, Bianca Herlo, Eva Liisa Kubinyi, Meitar Lubotzky-Avior, Ruth-Helene Melioranski, Teresa Palmieri, Rita Szerencsés, Jonathan J. Ventura, Borbála Marosán, Nara Capdeville · 2024
This book was created as part of the Change Agents — Blueprints for Interinstitutional Collaborations project, whose objective is to bring the design-focused academic sector and the NGO ecosystem closer together to cultivate a deeper understanding between these important stakeholders. In this way, the project contributes to the advancement of a more collaborative, inclusive, and participatory practice of design, while recognizing the already existing expertise of the participants. The project is centred around the idea that achieving these objectives will foster inclusivity in the field of design by engaging various agents and sectors with direct ties to different communities. These stakeholders are experienced in ethnographic fieldwork and can offer knowledge that is often not available to higher educational frameworks. By combining a focused social design literature review with experience-based methodological recommendations on cooperation in social design, the book can potentially raise awareness on how the design field — starting from design education — can address the real needs of communities to increase its social impact. This document was also created to help train future change makers who are dedicated to using their own practices to stimulate societal change. The authors developed this book with the purpose of supporting higher quality in academic, community-based design projects, as well as helping potential change makers propose new educational approaches in the long run. The knowledge shared in this book aims to assist relevant stakeholders in establishing qualitative approaches for participatory collaborations between the higher educational sector and NGOs using tools of social design and related fields as organising principles. Furthermore, this book can serve as a resource for training change agents — leaders of future interinstitutional projects that contribute to social impact and inclusion in a wider sense — so they can create a ripple effect in their respective environments and build methodological bridges between NGOs and the academic sector in the field of design.