Helen Simmons

My work explores the role of design and the use infrastructuring as a strategy to support co-creation of improved policy and services for social innovation. I am interested in the dynamics of grassroots participatory infrastructuring and the role of design and the Designer in this. I am keen to understand what spaces, roles, tools, languages and practices enable people to be truly innovative and entrepreneurial. I would like to understand this to know how we can help individuals within communities to grow the confidence, agency and skills to be able to address their own needs and desires, creating a culture of sustainable social innovation.

I am interested in how to create a vibrant and fruitful research culture within a design school and through micro projects am exploring the role of a design school promoting social justice within a civic university.

I am keen to develop new models of pedagogy making use of innovative technologies and accommodating different learning styles. I believe that providing students with experiential learning opportunities, collaborating with uncommon combinations of organisations and people, will create the environment where we can joinly take positive action on the grand challenges of the modern world.

As Senior Research Assistant on the Arts and Humanities Research Council and European Regional Development Fund supported programme Creative Fuse North East, I design and co-facilitate creative workshops and internship programmes with business owners of cross-sector small to medium enterprises helping them identify how they might innovate within or between their organisations.

My practice-based research is multidisciplinary in its approach and is grounded in values of inclusivity, accessibility empowerment and kindness.

I am currently working on the Creative Fuse North East research programme and co-producing the Designamite Podcast which explores the research, teaching and practice of Northumbria's School of Design.