wp3 / DC10

Evaluating platform design for climate governance advocacy

The doctoral project seeks to:
1) develop, test and implement an analytical framework to evaluate how affordances (design features) of digital platforms shape, enable or constrain climate advocacy;
2) to investigate and evaluate innovative strategies of leveraging affordances of digital platforms to maximise climate advocacy’s impact, outreach and collaboration;
3) and to explore and recommend change in the processes of (co)design of digital platforms for climate advocacy.

Ollie’s research examines how digital technologies ‘afford’ transformative forms of governance interaction in urban climate transition contexts, and how design interventions might support more transformative uses of technology here. Drawing on literature on ‘civic tech’, ‘affordances’, ‘transition governance’ and related fields, the research is firstly motivated by recurring critiques of (1) how tech is used for governance, and (2) how urban transitions are governed.

This research argues that the emergent diagnoses point to a deeper analytical gap: the lack of systematic ways to relate what technologies afford to the interactional dynamics of transformative approaches to climate governance. The project addresses this gap by developing a framework of ‘governance affordances’ and a framework of the interactions comprising transformative urban climate governance. These are the pillars on which case studies examining the relationships between tech and transformative climate governance can be conducted in cities, ultimately enabling design-led interventions in these contexts.

The doctoral project will require mixed qualitative and quantitative methods, including but not limited to (climate) network analysis, (expert) interviews, web scraping and (big) data analysis, and (co)design workshops. This is a daunting but exciting list of methods – the university and the CoDesign4Transitions Doctoral Network will provide assistance to help the doctoral candidate obtain these versatile skills.

Department of Design, Polimi, Italy with mentor Prof. Marzia Mortati, to investigate use of design approaches in the project methodology (3 months)
Lisbon Council, Belgium (6 months) with mentor Dr. Francesco Mureddu to evaluate climate action and advocacy strategies.