Dr Lara Salinas

Biography

Dr Lara Salinas is a design researcher and educator. She is co-director of Service Futures Lab at London College of Communication, University of the Arts London, and leads research on civic and public innovation in a range of different projects across sectors.

She supervises doctoral research in the fields of design for service and policy, design for social innovation and design for climate transitions.

Lara leads at international, national, and local levels yielding a broad spectrum of outputs and outcomes such as capacity-build initiatives, innovative service development, policy impact, methodological innovations, place-making and the establishment of communities of practice. Her work has led to the creation of new programmes (UKRI/AHRC secured £25 million in novel funding mechanisms for public design and climate justice, e.g., Future Observatory and Design Exchange Partnerships) new policies (influence of sustainable policy with national recognition at Southwark Council) new innovation units (Greenhouse at Cabinet Office's Government Digital Service) and new protocols (embedding social and planet related key performance indicators in national innovation agencies). Her work is recognised nationally and internationally by relevant sector bodies such as the OECD Observatory for Public Sector Innovation, Joint Research Centre European Commission, UKRI/AHRC, Department for Transport, Connected Places Catapult, Design Council, Nesta, UK Policy Lab, DEFRA Design Policy Lab, UK Policy Design Profession.

Lara convenes the Design Research Society's Special Interest Group in Policy and Governance. She is also director of SoRA-DASH, a support service to increase the Societal Readiness Levels of green mobility innovations; and founder of PNK Garden, a place-making initiative that has transformed an abandoned land into an independent community garden in central London, leveraging £180,000 of mixed resources. In the past she has been AHRC Research Fellow in Public Service, Postdoctoral Research Fellow on Public Collaboration Lab, Postdoctoral Research Fellow on Pharma Factory. She completed her PhD at Imagination Lancaster, Lancaster University in 2016, in one of the four hubs for knowledge exchange in the creative disciplines (AHRC 2012-2016), exploring the impact of public services on placemaking.


Exemplars of the wider societal impact of Dr Salinas’ scholarship are her
leadership in the following initiatives:

1) A new responsible innovation protocols called SoRA-DASH: an online open access platform to assess and improve the societal readiness level of green mobility innovations, such as new services or policies, improving awareness of challenges and opportunities, supporting innovation processes by providing a platform for creative dissent. This responsible innovation framework has been adopted by Connected Places Catapults and sub-national transport bodies, and Dr Salinas has received the Department for Transport’s Chief Scientific Advisor’s Award for outstanding academic project delivery.

2) A visual tool called Climate Emergency Visual Action Plan adopted by local governments and featured by OECD Observatory for Public Innovation, which supports local government capability to sustain collaborations with internal and external stakeholders in the delivery of climate action plans, increase transparency and accountability.

3) The UAL Climate Studio, a model for an innovation ecosystem (network of university, citizens, organisations and local government) to support collaborative place-based climate action. It has resulted on an increased understanding of the role of design schools in place-making and fostering climate action. The model will be further explored in a European doctoral network CoDesign4Transitions with local governments and international partners.

4) Visual guides for Covid-19, released in April 2020 as the first accessible guides following latest research, adopted by Mutual Aid groups in UK and United States.

5) The PNK Garden is a place-making initiative that has involved a whole neighbourhood into the regeneration of a contaminated strip of land into a local asset, leveraging £180,000 of mixed sources, in collaboration with Lewisham Council, Southwark Council, Veolia, Tideway, British Land, NHS, Wates, Rotherhithe Community Garden Network and many local organisations. Events like Plant and Paint, attracting 200 members of local communities is an exemplar of Dr Salinas’ impact on making the garden a laboratory for community-led place-based sustainable practices that impacts local and design communities.