We
The Design Research Lab is a network of people, organisations, and non-human agents engaged at the intersection of technologies, materials, and social practices. Our aim is to design socially and ecologically sustainable tools, spaces, and knowledge that support people’s participation in a digital society – based on common principles of inclusiveness and respect for the planet. This puts the basic democratic right to take part in the digital sphere into practice. We start our research from individual lifeworlds and the needs of minoritized groups, beyond consumer majorities.
We are an interdisciplinary team of designers, researchers, tech-enthusiasts and critical thinkers from Berlin University of the Arts, German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), Weizenbaum Institute for the Networked Society, as well as Einsteincenter Digital Future (ECDF).
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Change Agents — Blueprints for Interinstitutional Collaborations & Closing Conference 2024 @ Elisava
The Erasmus+ Change Agents project has released its publication Change Agents — Blueprints for Interinstitutional Collaborations (open access). The publication aims at empowering design educators, as well as students, NGOs, and other stakeholders. The idea is to advance social design practices and foster meaningful societal change. It offers sets of methods, ethical insights, and actionable strategies for social design and beyond.
The project brought together five universities and two NGOs, including the Berlin University of the Arts/Weizenbaum Institute, MOME Budapest (lead), the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Elisava School of Design and Engineering, the Estonian Academy of Arts, and Shenkar – Engineering. Design. Art.
The collaboration was grounded in the Social Design Network, founded in 2020 to strengthen the knowledge base of social design. With contributions from renowned researchers, teachers and practitioners, it supports the advancement of relevant education and research across the globe.
Change Agents is co-funded by the European Union’s Erasmus+ program.
Change Agents project partners are members of the Social Design Network.
The Blueprints were recently launched during the closing conference hosted by ELISAVA in Barcelona. This conference marked the conclusion of the Erasmus+ Change Agents project launched in 2022. At the conference, Elizabeth Calderón Lüning (DemSoc) and Bianca Herlo (UdK/Weizenbaum Institute) presented the Berlin pilot: A series of workshops and public events that critically engaged in questions of power relations and new understandings of knowledge.
© Pictures below: David Sabaté, Elisava
