Workshop

ProtoPublics Sprint Workshop: Prototyping Design Orientated Cross Disciplinary Research

The workshop was held at Lancaster University on April 16-17. It forms part of Developing participation in social design: Prototyping projects, programmes and policies, a project commissioned by the AHRC which aims to prototype new kinds of research collaboration oriented towards achieving societal change and collective outcomes. Research themes include mobilities; health and well-being; civic participation and public space. Selected research consortia, who form and iterate their ideas through the sprint workshop, were invited to apply through a targeted call for Project Development Awards of up to £15,000 (fEC).

Mode – agile, collaborative, generative, material and discursive

Time	Activity	Aim of Activity
	Wednesday 15 April
Evening	Arrival and check-in at Lancaster House Hotel, Lancaster University Campus No formal arrangements for dinner – delegates can dine at the hotel.
	Thursday 16 April
8:30	REGISTRATION at ImaginationLancaster Refreshments on arrival
0900	Icebreaker and Introductions

	ImaginationLancster – Professor Rachel CooperThe big picture – AHRC and Design, where does ProtoPublics fit in that picture? AHRC team
	Aims for ProtoPublics workshop and light overview
0930	Provocation 1 Sue Ball (Media and Arts Partnership) Q&A with Guy Julier	To add grounded practitioner perspective – design/creative research in the field in relation to local issues
1015	Activity 1 Mapping current activity: Create together a collective material/annotated map of research interests, themes, projects, HEIs, partners, communities – both those in the room and also related others, seeded by materials gathered by	To bring into view the various related projects that are emblematic or interesting in this area
1100	Coffee
1115	Activity 2 Identify themes (in small groups) and capture them and then share them	To generate themes (building on existing knowledge/ activities)
1230	Lunch
1315	Provocation 2 Celia Lury on inventive methods, the social, relevance and other issues
1415	Detail on the process for the rest of the sprint workshop – the process and criteria (focus around the stages of application process and timetable)
1445	Activity 3 Ideas market/speed dating (open conference type way of self organizing)– find a shared issue and form a cross-disciplinary team around it	To get people to choose themes they want to work on, and self-organise to find one another
1515	Activity 4 First date – get to know one another and one another’s research/institution/network/resources	Get to know other members of the proto-team, and dive into the theme and your interests in it
1615	Activity 5 Peer review – 10 mins presentation and fast feedback to one other team
1700	Activity 6 Second date – first stab at generating a research question
1745	Wrap up – reflections on day, what’s happening tonight and tomorrow. Walk back to hotel.
1815	Free time
1930	Dinner at Hotel
	Friday 17 April
0830	Check-in: reflections over night and from dinner
0900	Provocation 3 Provocations from Cat Macaulay and Nicola Hughes: What three things did they hear the day before that they thought were opportunities in relation to research and engagement relating to public policy. And what three things did they hear that concerned them?
0930	Clarification of format for presentation to challenge panel and criteria
1100	Teams self/re-organise/ prepare
1230	Lunch
1315	Presentations to challenge panel including (creative) peer review
1445	Challenge panel discusses in private/participants have free time
1545	Challenge panel presents decisions + next steps
1615	Close

Here are some photographs to document the day.

Our principles for the workshop: Agile; Participatory; Collaborative; Creative; Reflexive

Participants were asked to arrange their 'assets' on the tables to connect and expand upon our core themes: mobilities; civic participation; health and well-being; public space. — Participants were asked to arrange their ‘assets’ on the tables to connect and expand upon our core themes: mobilities; civic participation; health and well-being; public space.

From this collection of assets, participants could identify interests, priorities and expertise of others in the workshop.

From here, participants self-organised into groups to discuss common interests. They were encouraged to move between groups over the course of the two days before fixing on one group with which to put forward a research project pitch.

The workshop ended with creative project pitches, some of which took us outside the Imagination Lancaster building.

Twitter record for ProtoPublics including workshop

Before, during and just after the ProtoPublics workshop there was activity on twitter, mostly by researchers invited to attend and/or by the organisers (Guy Julier, Leah Armstrong and me).

During the workshop at Lancaster on April 16-17, some of these people were live tweeting including with photographs. So I thought I’d do a grab from Twitter in order to preserve these dialogues.

Protopublics – Twitter Search 20150422

Participants at ProtoPublics workshop, ImaginationLancaster, Lancaster University, 16-17 April.

Dr	Rachel	Aldred	University of Westminster
	Jocelyn	Bailey	BOP Consulting
	Sue	Ball	Media And Arts Partnership
Dr	Jen	Ballie	DJCAD, University of Dundee
	Simon	Bell	Open University
	Christopher	Boyko	Lancaster University
Dr	Jo	Briggs	Northumbria University
Dr	Monika	Buscher	Lancaster University
Dr	Stephen	Clune	Imagination Lancaster, Lancaster University
	Sophia	de Sousa	The Glass-House Community Led Design
Dr	Nicola	Dempsey	University of Sheffield
	Stephen	Douch	Plan Strategic
Dr	James	Duggan	Manchester Metropolitan University
	Shaimaa	ElNaggar	Lancaster University
Dr	Bianca	Elzenbaumer	Leeds College of Art
	Duncan	Fairfax	Goldsmiths, University of London
	Nick	Gant	University of Brighton
	Salvia	Giuseppe	Nottingham Trent University
Dr	Fiona	Hackney	Falmouth University
Prof	Jonathan	Harris	University of Southampton, Winchester School of Art
Dr	Sabine	Hielscher	SPRU, University of Sussex
Prof	Rob	Imrie	Goldsmiths, University of London
Dr	Thomas	Jun	Loughborough University
Dr	Kat	Jungnickel	Goldsmiths, University of London
	Bastien	Kerspern	Design Friction / Casus Ludi
	Constance	Laisné	Altgen
Dr	Dan	Lockton	Royal College of Art
Prof	Celia	Lury	University of Warwick
Dr	Justin	Marshall	Falmouth University
	Andy	Milligan	DJCAD, University of Dundee
Dr	Lesley	Murray	University of Brighton
Dr	Kathy	Pui Ying Lo	Loughborough University
Dr	Graham	Pullin	DJCAD, University of Dundee
	Guido	Robazza	University of Portsmouth
Dr	Rebecca	Ross	Central Saint Martins
Dr	Tatjana	Scheider	University of Sheffield
Dr	Justin	Spinney	University of Cardiff
	Nick	Taylor	DJCAD, University of Dundee
Dr	Damon	Taylor	University of Brighton
Dr	Sarah	Teasley	Royal College of Art
Dr	Emmanuel	Tsekleves	Imagination Lancaster, Lancaster University
	Naomi	Turner	Associate Parliamentary Design and Innovation Group and the Design Commission
Dr	Nina	Wakeford	Goldsmiths, University of London
	Anna	Whicher	Cardiff Metropolitan University
Dr	Alex	Wilkie	Goldsmiths, University of London
Dr	Aylish	Wood	University of Kent

Workshop facilitators
Professor Guy Julier, University of Brighton/Victoria and Albert Museum
Dr Lucy Kimbell, University of Brighton/Policy Lab, Cabinet Office
Dr Leah Armstrong, University of Brighton/Victoria and Albert Museum

Challenge Panel Guests
Nicola Hughes, Institute for Government
Cat Macaulay, Scottish Government

AHRC
Paul McWhirter
Jessica Clark

ProtoPublics

Developing participation in social design: prototyping projects, programmes and policies

Workshop

Time

Activity

Aim of Activity

Wednesday 15 April

Thursday 16 April

Friday 17 April