Using Service and Human Centered Design to Create National STI Roadmaps: Intervention speech at Session 6 National STI roadmaps for the SDGs and capacity building

Your excellency, thank you for the distinguished panelists. Coming from the academic position and working with national and international policy development and Horozon2020 funded development research, especially digitalization of services and design focusing on user inclusion and accessibility as well the service development both in the arctic region and in the global south. It is important to ensure that STI roadmaps will enable balanced service development, digital and technological inclusion as starting point for local and global innovation systems and equal opportunities, in the high level policy processes there needs to be means to commit networks of stakeholder communities into program activities in volume and in very concrete way with very strong media and communication plan to support practical implementation, sufficient resources and national programs that will create context relevant identifiable benefits and value for contributing to SDGs for all the stakeholders. Stakeholder community feedback needs to also influence the roadmap contents in ongoing and dynamic way to impact on the direction to create two way street. Roadmaps need to be dynamic, interactive and using collaborative processes. Policy work and activities need to create engagement, service design and co-design that will feed into roadmap and create joint national and global vision and direction.

This is needed to scale up and include societies and global community at large to benefit from various national and international measures to increase STI benefits for SDGs.

It is important to utilize participatory processes that enable commitment and action, for example service design as a platform that can provide tools for the stakeholders, scientific and engineering community to create dialogue and concretize policy goals into tasks and supports the decision-making process. Service design can facilitate the STI roadmap process and improve the understanding of projects, goals and outcomes. There needs to be community centered process to ensure that there is strategic commitment and that STI projects in more grass-root level will feed into long term goals and processes.