BRINGING SYSTEMIC DESIGN IN THE EDUCATIONAL PRACTICE: THE CASE OF GENDER EQUALITY IN AN ACADEMIC CONTEXT

The field of design practice and design education is reaching out to address problems that cannot be solved by introducing a single product or service. Complex societal problems such as gender inequality cannot be solved using a traditional problem-solving oriented design approach. The specific characteristics of these problems require new ways of dealing with the dynamics, scale and complexity of the problem.Systemic design is a design approach integrating systems thinking in combination with more traditional design methodologies, addressing complex and systemic problems. This paper reports a systemic design approach in an educational context for the case of academic gender inequality. We show the way the problem was addressed and how design students were invited to take a systemic perspective, provide integrated interventions and take first steps in providing instruments for implementation. We conclude with the learnings from this case study, both on the process and the results.

Data analysis tools for the study of scientific citations

This research work made a study of scientific citations, with the aim of identifying aspects that may influence the citations of a higher educational institution. We analyzed 219 records of publications of the National University of Chimborazo and 10304 records of manuscripts from Ecuador. This work had a qualitative approach and a systemic design. As a result, it was found that the impact of scientific publications is reflected by the number of citations that have the documents published by the higher education institutions; in this sense, publications with larger citations are not related to the number of authors or volume of the published magazine, but they are supported by a quality research and correspond mostly to applied sciences.

Prospecting a systemic design space for pandemic responses

Design literature describes an expansion of design activity towards systemic relations, which requires dealing with controversies among multiple actors. These controversies have a sociotechnical nature, given the inextricably of social and technical relations. This research looks at the sociotechnical controversy in COVID-19 design responses to assess the extent of said expansion. A controversial design space mapping was conducted based on a set of web pages found in the international design community which describes design responses for the pandemic. Considered as a representation of a socially-produced design space, the mapping reveals that systemic relations are still overlooked by the design community. A possible explanation for that is the lack of depth in problematizing the COVID-19 pandemic. The research offers, thus, prospective recommendations for a systemic design space for pandemics and other systemic crisis.