We spoke to Rowan Conway, discussing design practices and the ways in which they can have a transformative impact on policymaking and the new economy field.  Rowan is the Deputy Director at the Just Transition Finance Lab at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change & the Environment. She is also a Policy Fellow and Visiting Professor of Strategic Design, leading the Transformation by Design module of the MPA in Innovation, Public Policy and Public Value at UCL’s Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose.

Can you share a bit about your work? 

I do a variety of things, but they can be broken down into three areas: teaching, research and applied experimentation in new economic policy domains – particularly focused on mission oriented innovation and just transitions.

As a teacher I am a Visiting Professor of Strategic Design at UCL’s Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP) where I lead the Transformation by Design module of the MPA in Innovation, Public Policy and Public Value. Between 2019-2022 I worked with Professor Mariana Mazzucato to lead the Mission Oriented Innovation Network (MOIN) at IIPP, convening global policy-making institutions such as the Scottish Government, the Swedish innovation agency Vinnova, the New Zealand Department for the Environment, the OECD, UNDP and the BBC and working with these institutions  in a range of exploratory design projects focused on mission-oriented innovation and public value creation. 

The strategic design methodology I now teach alongside Gabriella Gomez Mont, was codesigned with Dan Hill and focuses on methods of co-creation between policy actors (network partners) and academic researchers, and builds skills for exploratory prototyping and practice-based experimentation. This kind of experimentation begins with defining and testing new ideas about economics and the broader political economy, then bringing them into real world contexts through micro experimentation. My teaching is a small but mighty part of my work portfolio, and I am also lucky enough to teach a short Applied Policy Elective on “Public Entrepreneurship” for the MPP at the Blavatnik School of Government, Oxford University and the Design course as part of the Masters in Management Sciences at UCL School of Management.

In my main job, I am Deputy Director of the Just Transition Finance Lab, Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics. The Grantham Research Institute is chaired by Professor Nick Stern and in February 2024 launched the Lab to become a world-leading centre for experimentation and excellence in the financial solutions needed for a just transition to a net zero and nature positive economy. The Lab builds on five years of preliminary research and engagement with partners across the world. My role is to build the applied innovation program. To do this I am using my skills as a practising strategic designer, to design and host transformative innovation projects with industry, government and third sector collaboratives. This draws on experimental practices I developed when I was Director of Innovation at the Royal Society of Arts leading the RSA Lab, an experimental space where we used design and action research methods to explore, prototype and test research insights and policy ideas with government agencies, NGOs, academic partners, NHS Trusts, businesses and social enterprises on topics such as the future of work, deliberative democracy, tech and society, circular economy and systems change. 

Finally, in my side hustle as a researcher, I have been working on my part time Phd since 2018 which is entitled: “Experimenting with New Economic Paradigms, An exploration at the intersection of design, psychology and the new economics of mission oriented innovation”. For this research I am using the empirical research tools of cognitive psychology to understand if there is a conceptual dependency in the policy design process on neoclassical economic paradigms. This research aims to understand implications for systemic designers as they expand their remit to encompass greater complexity and new economic thinking. My hope is to make a useful contribution of knowledge to the emerging field of “Neuroeconomics”.

 

One of the levers for change we invest in at P4NE is policy influencing and policy change. The role of design in policymaking is becoming more critical and valuable. Can you share how using a design-led approach to policy-making is different?

Policy is many things – from the hyperlocal to the supranational. Its design must not just incorporate new narratives but also build new structures that can support the systems transformation that we need for climate-resilient futures. New economic thinking is pivotal in the context of the climate crisis. So to approach the economics of innovation from a planetary perspective, a growing number of economists — Jackson, Hickel, Raworth, Mazzucato, Rodrik — are reconceiving the normative frames of economics towards a transformative orientation. This discourse, however, is very broad and sometimes in conflict, but it is attracting considerable public interest and influence on policymaking. Many theorists present new policy propositions (such as doughnut economics or mission-oriented innovation policy) as an alternative to the mainstream, but economic mechanisms are steadfastly resistant to change.  

…design can help overcome the “say/do gap.”

This is where design can help overcome the “say/do gap”. Design is many things and there is a whole conversation about what form design should take to support policy – whether that is UX design, service design or systems design. But in the policy world that I orbit, systems design is emerging as a practice to help grapple with complexity and systems innovation. As this new approach to design takes off, my observation is that it tends to focus on one of two lenses – the macro of systems change or the micro of behavioural interventions – and it engages much less on the concrete practices of institutional behaviour and the structural integrity of our economic systems. Changing these things – the default heuristics of modern life – is the hardest, as capital is encoded in economic norms through a tightly wound interlocked system of rules, practices and knowledge systems. Addressing this path dependency through new design practices is where my work sits, because if you do not change the underlying frame, the policy outputs can only remain in the realm of business as usual.

 

How do you see this approach being useful in the ‘new economy’ field?

I am so committed to my teaching of Transformation by Design because I think future policymakers and the wider new economy field must have the capability and the bridging mechanisms to address the “yes, but how?” questions posed in the process of developing policy that can support new economic logic. Policy design can definitely play a role here. Designers build an abductive muscle which means that they can think beyond the empirical confines of deductive reasoning. But they also need to complement this capacity with solid domain expertise in order not to be written off as the “fluffy front end”. 

…future policymakers and the wider new economy field must have the capability and the bridging mechanisms to address the “yes, but how?” questions posed in the process of developing policy that can support new economic logic.

This means being able to support transdisciplinary work and engage with a deep understanding of the economic logics underpinning their work. Without this, the quality of design will remain judged in terms of creativity and innovation rather than the application of abductive reasoning. In my teaching, I try to show how design practices can enable policymakers to build new futures, frames and systems, and I ask my students to use tools like positionality analysis, perspective-taking; re-framing and micro-experimentation in safe-fail environments. To bring new economic thinking into policy requires strong facilitative skills which can build psychological safety and address power asymmetries with empathy and compassion. The next generation of policy designers must be literate in this kind of work if we are to reorient our economies to fit a future of unprecedented challenges.

 

You talk about one aspect of your work as “applied experimentation in new economic policy” – can you share a few examples of where you think this kind of applied experimentation in new economic policy is being done well? And why have you chosen those examples? 

There are various ways to experiment with new economic thinking in policy. Many governments are experimenting with design-led approaches to reframe policy issues and generate new policy solutions, and there is a good deal of policy experimentation that uses design sprints or policy lab events. These interventions can draw out insights from diverse groups of stakeholders quickly and showcase new ideas for policy solutions. But while one-off policy labs are engaging and are a useful learning experience for everyone involved, they can struggle to deliver enduring change effects or get into structural barriers to change in a meaningful way. I have led many of these myself, but my rule of thumb now is: if it is too fast, it is likely to stay on the surface. 

Contrary to common understanding of design methods, strategic design if embedded in a policy team is a patient way to “craft decision-making” and ensure that decisions are made through structured iterations, so that problems are considered holistically and solutions are imagined creatively, while progressing toward a robust detailed design. We often hear calls for “redesigning the economy!” but to do this actually needs a micro-level of experimentation and prototyping, rather than the grand scale wham, bam, thank you Ma’am policy design blitz. 

We often hear calls for “redesigning the economy!” but to do this actually needs a micro-level of experimentation and prototyping, rather than the grand scale wham, bam, thank you Ma’am policy design blitz. 

In places like Sweden, Denmark, Mexico and Australia there are policy design units that engage in an action inquiry. Designers facilitate stakeholder interaction that generates frames to define the boundaries of a problem or system, and then build strategic prototypes that outline entry points into complex problem areas.

The way I approach policy prototyping is by using a semi-structured design process like the one outlined below. It navigates iterative design phases, engaging key actors along the way in co-design sessions to elicit insights and build a functional policy prototype.

Andrew Knight, who leads policy design in the UK Government noted in a 2022 blog:

The traditional way of making public policy and services is for a policy idea to be implemented, then its impact is tested and reported on. Design turns this on its head, advocating for evidence-led policy policymaking and iteration through a research-design-test-build process. In practice, this guides policymakers to only commit to build or implement once they have confidence that the initiative is deliverable, and it will produce the expected effect…Perversely, officials often perceive experimental design as high risk, but in fact it is an exercise in controlled risk management through incremental reduction of uncertainty.

Here are a few examples of experimental approaches that I appreciate:

Co-design approaches: Co-design is an approach to designing with, not for, people. While co-design is helpful in many areas, it typically works best where people with lived experience, communities and professionals work together to improve something that they all care about. Overall, the primary role of co-design is elevating the combined voices of many actors. It is rarely recognised how challenging – and specialised – this work is and how much long term investment incapability is required to do it well. Vinnova in Sweden have invested heavily in building internal capacity to deliver on new innovation policy through the Vinnova mission design process which is focused on transforming Sweden’s food system and regenerating the nation’s streets. The Vinnova approach started by engaging a wide range of system actors to inform a series of mission prototypes, but this snowballed (by design) to become an innovation ecosystem that is greater than the sum of its parts. 

Behavioural experimentation with policy actors:  The UCL Climate Action Unit aims to transform how society acts on climate change. Its approach is underpinned by a systems-based understanding of why governments, businesses and citizens are not acting at the scale and pace needed – and how this can be resolved. The Unit worked recently with a group of MPs in the UK to explore leadership for climate change. Focusing on ‘people factors’ – the individual differences in perception, opinion, lived experience, knowledge, understanding, values, worldviews etc – this experimental process of five weekly gatherings, drew together a group of MPs and Peers to introduce a new framing of climate change that revealed the psychological barriers and levers for action on climate across society. Designed by a neuroscientist, the process gave participants the tools and space to apply these insights to the context of their own climate-related challenges such as Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTN). This kind of behavioural insights immersion can then inform micro-experimentation working with constituents to understand change on the ground as opposed to calling for undeliverable high level policy which could get lost in the legislative machinery.

Learning communities Good experimentation with new economic thinking needs “dwell time” –  the time to reflect and remodel, and see for yourself the social proof that others are engaging with the same challenges. Micro learning communities are emerging in the new economic thinking realm. Expressions of this can be seen in a growing network-based strategic learning community in the Transformative Innovation Policy Consortium (TIPC), a global multi-actor community that aims to build and strengthen interdisciplinary consensus on practices between academics, policy makers and funding agencies and cocreate new capabilities that go beyond current innovation policy frames. Similar mutual learning-based approaches can be found in other cohort-based learning communities such as the EU Mutual Learning Exercises of which I am a chair of the most recent one focused on the EU Missions. This community-based approach sits at the evolving edge of transformative policy and supports the consolidation of new narratives and practices in new economic thinking.

 

How would you recommend new economy organisations and actors grow their capacity in policy design?

Do the MPA! Haha! Or, failing that, engage with the work of the UCL Climate Action Unit, or long-term policy lab units embedded in governments such as UK Policy Lab or Laboratorio de Gobierno in Chile. Practitioners engaging from the third sector or think tanks include Dan Hill’s work in Melbourne and the great work Gabriella Gomez Mont is doing at Experimentalista.

Transdisciplinary practices are the entry point into transformative design practices, so getting outside of the comfort zone and sitting with people unlike you is a necessary first step.

If you are working in finance, you are also welcome to join our community focused on the just transition. We are building a hub that can foster engagement across a very broad spectrum, from private finance through to labour unions and activist communities. Transdisciplinary practices are the entry point into transformative design practices, so getting outside of the comfort zone and sitting with people unlike you is a necessary first step.

 

Rowan Conway

Rowan is the Deputy Director at the Just Transitions Finance Lab at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change & the Environment. She is also a Policy Fellow and Visiting Professor of Strategic Design, leading the Transformation by Design module of the MPA in Innovation, Public Policy and Public Value at UCL’s Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose.

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