Service Design with Communities for Inclusive Solutions

The main aim of this interdisciplinary research group is to address locally and globally significant societal, geographical and technological challenges through service design, arts-based research and participatory approaches. Its particular emphasis is in value co-creation with many different kinds of communities, organisations, institutions or companies with specific needs. It aims at creating dialogue and addressing challenges related to access to services and questions of inclusion and equality, which may also include some sensitive and conflicted issues.

The group develops new tools, methods, models and practical solutions for delivering and co-creating services with remote or otherwise marginal communities, and producing new solutions for human-centred healthcare and more competitive tourism or logistics services. The aims are also in the optimisation of the current services through technological AI-oriented service design.

Co-Stars emphasise the agency and inclusion of underserved and marginalised communities. Co-Stars also encourage dialogue and collaboration between the margins and communities of the global South and global North to address locally some of the global processes and challenges that influence us all – including Arctic societies, Indigenous and other local communities. The group implements case studies in different parts of the Global South and the Arctic, which enables to bring forth a broad spectrum of perspectives as well as peer-to-peer learning.

The scientific outcomes as well as conceptual and methodological contributions of the research group can be utilised in multiple ways across different disciplines, for example, in design research, marketing research, engineering, tourism studies and various fields of social sciences. The results will have several effects and impacts also beyond academia.

Research themes

The research themes of the Co-Stars are organised as:

1) Participatory Service Design with Underserved Communities
2) Service Design for Smart Business Innovation and Cultural Economy
3) Socio-Materialising Service Design: towards more-than-human ethics

These categories include multiple research topics and interdisciplinary projects by the researchers and social innovators of the group, for example from addressing youth empowerment to study the role of arts in generating social change.