Dr Laura Warwick

Assistant Professor

Department: Northumbria School of Design

Dr Laura Warwick is a Senior Lecturer in Service Design and Social Innovation at Northumbria University. She completed her PhD in 2015, which explored the value of design approaches to Voluntary Community Sector (VCS) organisations delivering public services.

Laura continues to research and work in the sector, supporting national and international voluntary organisations and funders to embed service design into their practices to improve their impact. She also collaborates with researchers from across Europe and North America to understand how co-design can be used to improve mental health services.

Laura was also the Associate on a Knowledge Transfer Partnership embedding Service Design methodology within Age UK Newcastle, which won the Research Councils of UK Knowledge Base Impact Award in 2013. She was selected to be a Centenary Young Fellow of the RSA and is also a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Campus Address

School of Design
City Campus East
Newcastle-upon-Tyne
NE1 2SW

Email Laura

Research Themes and Scholarly Interests

Dr Laura Warwick researches extensively into the impact of design on Voluntary Community Sector (VCS) organisations. She does this through collaborations with local, national and international charities and funders looking to use Service Design to increase their impact.

The foundation for this work was Laura's PhD, completed in 2015, which explored the value of design approaches to Voluntary Community Sector (VCS) organisations delivering public services. Since then, Laura has coached, trained and undertaken research with Service Design teams to share evolving best practice and continue to learn about the factors that amplify and inhibit the impact of Service Design in this context.

Laura also collaborates with researchers from across Europe and North America to understand how co-design can be used to improve mental health services. She also researches into the impact of co-design on co-design participants, specifically exploring how this can be best managed when designing in mental health contexts.

Key Publications

Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
Designing as Negotiating Across Logic Multiplicity: The case of mental healthcare transformation toward co-design and co-production, Sangiorgi, D., Vink, J., Farr, M., Mulvale, G., Warwick, L. 30 Apr 2022, In: International Journal of Design
Situating Service Design: Approaches to embedding Service Design in Voluntary Community Sector Organisations, Warwick, L., Spencer, A., Strohmayer, A., Talhouk, R. 1 Dec 2021, 14th International Conference of the European Academy of Design, Safe Harbours for Design Research, São Paulo, Brazil, Blucher
Establishing Trust through Storytelling: A Model for Co-Design, Parkinson, D., Warwick, L. 2 Nov 2020, Design revolutions: IASDR 2019 Conference Proceedings. Volume 3: People., Manchester, Manchester Metropolitan University Press
Applying Design Approaches to Advance Recovery-Oriented Mental Health Policy, Warwick, L. 20 Feb 2019, Fourteenth Workshop on Costs and Assessment in Psychiatry
Designing in highly contentious areas: Perspectives on a way forward for mental healthcare transformation, Sangiorgi, D., Farr, M., McAllister, S., Mulvale, G., Sneyd, M., Vink, J., Warwick, L. 2019, In: The Design Journal
Ageing in place: Creativity and resilience in neighbourhoods, Bailey, C., Gilroy, R., Reynolds, J., Douglas, B., Saaremets, C., Nicholls, M., Warwick, L., Gollan, M. 19 Dec 2018, Resilience and Ageing, Policy Press
A Landscape of Design: Design for Industry 2016, Hewitt, I., O'Leary, D., Parkinson, D., Forsyth, A., Scott-Harden, S., Warwick, L., Wong, R., Smith, N., Young, R. 4 May 2018
Co-designing wellbeing: the commonality of needs between co-designers and mental health service users, Warwick, L., Tinning, A., Smith, N., Young, R. Jun 2018, Design Research Society 2018 Conference
Funding Service Design: growing Service Design practice through a grants programme, Warwick, L., Pierri, P., Bradnam, C., Field, E. Jun 2018, ServDes.2018 - Service Design and Service Innovation conference 2018
Designing Trust: the importance of relationships in social contexts, Warwick, L. 6 Sep 2017, In: The Design Journal

Qualifications

Design Studies PhD May 01 2015
Design Studies MA December 01 2011
Design Studies BA (Hons) September 01 2005
Fellow (FHEA) Higher Education Academy (HEA) 2017
Fellow Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures & Commerce (RSA) 2014

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