Dr Federico Vaz
- Tutor (Research)
- Service Design MA
Federico is a designer and design researcher. His work centres on design-driven innovation management in the public sphere to co-develop policies and services for more equitable futures.
Dr Federico Vaz is a Tutor (Research) in the Service Design MA and a Design and Futures Fellow at the United Nations Development Programme. He trained as an Industrial Designer and studied Design Innovation for his Master's, before writing a PhD on design's role in public policy innovation. He has worked on several design-led innovation projects in the public sector in Europe, Africa and Latin America. Likewise, with over a decade of experience in design education and research, Federico has worked for Higher Education Institutions in North America, South America, and the UK.
Key details
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Research interests
Federico’s research has looked in detail at how central and local governments can make use of design in the creation of public services and public policy.
His pragmatist approach focuses on the co-development of interventions that could produce more equitable public policies and services for the communities affected by them.
In the past decade, Federico has worked in industrial, social, and tax policies, and developed training for public servants working in these policy sectors.
Research funding
Doctoral Studentship, Loughborough University London (2017–20)
This studentship fully funded my doctoral work at the Institute for Design Innovation (IDI).
Chevening Scholarship, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (2015-16).
This scholarship fully funded my MSc Design Innovation Management studies at the Institute for Design Innovation.
Publications, exhibitions, other outcomes
Federico, V.(2023) Introducing design for public sector innovation in nigeria’s federal government, in De Sainz Molestina, D., Galluzzo, L., Rizzo, F., Spallazzo, D. (eds.), IASDR 2023: Life-Changing Design, 9-13 October, Milan, Italy. https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2023.318
Vaz, F., Koria, M. and Prendeville, S., 2022. ‘Design for policy’from below: grassroots framing and political negotiation. Policy Design and Practice, 5(4), pp.410-426.
Vaz, F., and Bosch Gomez, S. (2022) Who designs for policy?, in Lockton, D., Lenzi, S., Hekkert, P., Oak, A., Sádaba, J., Lloyd, P. (eds.),DRS2022: Bilbao, 27 June - 3 July, Bilbao, Spain. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2022.903
Hitchen, G. and Vaz, F., 2021. HWCRAIC - Covid-19 and Creative Clusters. Loughborough University. https://hdl.handle.net/2134/22117067.v1.
Vaz, F. and Ferreira, M., 2021. Assessing design approaches' political role in the public sector. Journal of Design Research, 19(4-6), pp.197-212.
Federico, V.A.Z. and PRENDEVILLE, S., 2019, November. Design as an agent for public policy innovation. In Conference proceedings of the Academy for Design Innovation Management (Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 143-156).
External collaborations and activities
2023-24. Design and Futures Fellow, UNDP’s Strategy and Futures Team. Co-author and designer of the 2024 UNDP Trends Report: The Landscape of Development (https://www.undp.org/future-development/publications/2024-undp-trends-report-landscape-development).
2022-23. Inaugural Governance Innovation Designer-Researcher, MIT GOV/LAB. I worked with Nigeria’s Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC) to co-identify existing roadblocks to public innovation and co-develop a pilot plan for a solution to specific governance challenges (https://mitgovlab.org/resources/designing-governance-innovations-in-resource-constrained-settings/).
2020-24. Public Innovation Consultant, Uruguay’s National Agency for Innovation and Research (ANII). I designed a ‘public service innovation toolkit’, and implemented it with several public bodies including ministries and local government agencies (https://innovacionpublica.anii.org.uy/kitinnovacion/).