Public defence, Design, MA Annukka Svanda

Title of the thesis: Inclusion, Agency, and Justice by Design

Thesis defender: Annukka Svanda
Opponent: Prof. Associate Professor Marzia Mortati, Politecnico di Milano
Custos: Prof. Turkka Keinonen, Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture

Service design for more just and effective public services

A public service can operate entirely according to it's rules and still produce inequality. Annukka Svanda’s doctoral research shows how participatory service design can help identify such hidden problems in public services – and work with service users and professionals to transform them towards more just and better functioning services. The development work conducted in connection with the research has produced significant results. Launched in Espoo in 2021, the KOSKE service - Competence center for highly educated immigrants - has succeeded in helping approximately half of its clients find employment in their own professional field. Employment that matches a person’s expertise matters not only to the individual jobseeker: it has broader implications for making use of existing skills, strengthening municipal tax revenues, and supporting contribution to society. The example demonstrates what can be achieved when service development focuses not on adapting people to the existing system, but on critically examining the system itself and the assumptions embedded within it.

Svanda’s doctoral research is based on a long-term collaboration with the City of Espoo’s employment and immigration services between 2020 and 2023. The research involved service users, municipal employees and managers, as well as other actors within the service ecosystem. Through interviews, workshops, and sustained co-development, the research examined how inequalities embedded in services can be identified and transformed, and how different actors’ opportunities to influence service development can be strengthened.

A key finding of the research is that inequality does not always result from individual failures in decision-making or intentional discrimination. It can be embedded in the assumptions, classifications, and established practices of a service system. The dissertation describes this through the concept of institutional service failure: a service can operate exactly as intended and still produce unequal outcomes.

The strength of participatory service design lies in its capacity to bring together different forms of knowledge and the perspectives of different actors. Combining service users’ experiences with the knowledge of employees, managers, and other actors can reveal assumptions that might otherwise remain unnoticed in the everyday work of an organisation. The designer’s role is not to provide ready-made solutions to these issues, but to help build shared understanding and create conditions for change.

This makes service design a strategic tool for the public sector. In an increasingly complex world, public organisations must simultaneously respond to growing population diversity, labour shortages, economic pressures, and increasing demands for services. These challenges cannot all be addressed by optimising individual services. Public organisations need the capacity to identify tensions within systems, bring together the knowledge of different actors, and transform practices collaboratively.

The broader conclusion of the doctoral research extends beyond employment services. The societal value of participatory service design is not limited to designing better services. It can help public organisations recognise their own blind spots and strengthen their capacity to learn, adapt, and build more just services in an increasingly complex world.

Keywords: service design, participatory design, strategic design, justice, inclusion

Thesis available for public display 7 days prior to the defence at Aalto University's public display page. 

Contact: annukka.svanda@aalto.fi, +358503683634 https://www.linkedin.com/in/annukka-svanda-058389139/