Research Dialogues for Proximity and Trust When Working With Government

This chapter reflects on matters of proximity and trust as they present themselves to academic researchers and public servants who share an interest in organizational changes to foster transformations on the policy and societal level. Its aim is to prepare design researchers for new kinds of relationships with those responsible for developing, implementing and monitoring policies on the local, regional and national level. We report on the research partnership we as authors have developed between the Swiss municipality Emmen and the Competence Centre Design & Management, a research group focusing on human-centred design, social transformation and business innovation in the context of digital and AI technologies at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts. We share how we all had to reshape our respective role and responsibility and expectations on “the other” to allow this collaboration to flourish over time. Moreover, we had to depart from traditional ways of academic and government engagement. By sharing these insights, we wish to support all designers wishing to engage more productively with public sector transformation and innovation. What we present may offer a frame to develop their own sustainable relationships strengthened by proximity and trust carefully straddling lines of advocacy and research.