Communication Design within Social Innovation: Application to Depopulated Inland Territories.
Abstract
A practice-based research is being conducted in a mountain territory undergoing serious difficulties regarding population decline: Aldeias da Montanha, a network of small villages in Serra da Estrela, Portugal.
Research goals aim at exploring how communication design, regarded as an expanded field of practice, can act as a trigger, a facilitator and a capacity builder for social innovation. We expect, as a research outcome, to be able to establish a supportive infrastructure for empowering communities to build creative networks and collaborate in making local projects happen.
The research design encompasses a multiple case study, a workshop about design for social innovation for design students, and co-creation sessions with experts and local communities. Also, we are working on a digital platform prototype that works as a social innovation idea bank to promote collaboration and co-creation between local communities, designers and other stakeholders.
We aim to enable design-led projects that deploy community-led social innovation initiatives by connecting design students, researchers, practitioners, and communities. Also, this digital platform can be replicated to benefit similar low-density geographic areas.
Other projects