Collaboration of Design Schools and Public Institutions: Towards a Strategy to Introduce Service Design to Public Sector

ABSTRACT Complex problems of public services and the changing world force public institutions to innovate. Service design can be considered as one of the essential tools for innovations in the public sector. However, it is not well realized and not widely used worldwide. This research attempts to understand the challenges and opportunities for design-driven public service innovation in order to find ways to spread this discipline through the public sector. Even though they also encounter barriers in public sector, design schools can be one of the most important actors for design-driven innovation in the public sector. Design schools and public sector collaborations can be gain for both parties. While public sector could be introduced design driven innovation, design schools can see public organizations as an experimentation area for research and education. Therefore, to gather relevant data, sixteen case studies of design schools and public organizations partnerships around the world are reviewed in terms of their actors, aims, outcomes, and results. This research is a part of an ongoing Ph.D. study in an Industrial Design Department in Turkey.