The contemporary technological advancements in information and communication technologies (ICT) enable the employment of non-traditional data sources (e.g. satellite data, sensors, cell phone networks data, social media, etc.) in different aspects of the public sphere. Datafication is changing the relationship between governments and citizens, and the way governments address policy problems. Nowadays, policy-makers are urged to harness data for policies and public service design, while answering at the same time the demand for citizen engagement; as a consequence, innovative government/governance models appeared to connect these two instances. Although it is not a new concept, the model of Anticipatory Governance is particularly worth considering in light of contemporary data availability. Predictive analytics based on data increasingly realizes predictions for public action, although it presents many controversial implications (e.g. the epistemology of data evidence, public trust and privacy). In this article, we address Anticipatory Governance models emerging from data used in futures thinking and policy-making. To understand this phenomenon, we will briefly retrace current paradigms of futures thinking and Anticipatory Governance concerning policy-making, specifying the contemporary perspective design has on these topics. Then, we identify the use of data in futures thinking practices through a systematic literature search. Finally, we will address the challenges and implications of designing data-driven Anticipatory Governance by portraying three scenarios supported by real cases of data for policy-making.

The pandemic has revolutionized economic, social, and political models and broken down private and public systems, probably irreversibly. The gap between top-down and bottom-up approaches has widened, favoring divergences between centralized approaches and distributed solutions. The need to rethink rhythms, relationships, places, organizations and governance models emerged, as well as, to rethink the way we create relationships and we design. The paper discusses the adoption of an empathic component in the governance of complex ecosystems to make them more resilient to unexpected phenomena such as Covid-19. The aim is to bring a design perspective discussing the need for an ‘empathic revolution’, namely the adoption of empathy as a lever of innovation for communities, businesses, organizations, and governments. The hypothesis is to adopt empathy not only to understand the users' needs in the development of new products and services, but to extend its adoption also in organizational changes up to transformative processes. In the first part, empathy is described through an extra-disciplinary observation. The second part outlines how empathy has been adopted in the design field. The third part analyzes - through the empathic component - some phenomena that occurred during the pandemic at a community, organizational, and governmental level.

Cities provide a privileged context for observing environmental, social, political, and economic changes. They offer great opportunities for experimentation, often becoming laboratories for innovative practices in different fields of research. This article describes how Service Design can concretely contribute to promoting sustainable and inclusive services at the city level by adopting participatory, collaborative, and multi-stakeholder processes. In particular, the article analyses, through a literature review, the evolution of service design applied to complex and large-scale systems, identifying in the recent conceptualization of service ecosystem design the framework for designing sustainable and inclusive solutions in urban contexts. Two design studios were developed through a collaborative design process to link theory and practice. Three examples of service concepts are described as experiments in transformative service design practices that incorporate systems thinking. The article explains how service designers can deal with complex and large-scale transformations in terms of sustainable urban services and outlines a service design process and some design and research implications related to the ability to adapt to uncertainty and incorporate complexity as design elements.

The scale and process of Service Design are expanding and evolving as the emerging challenges they face become increasingly complex and uncertain. In order to cope with the systemic complexity and uncertainty of future changes when designing service (eco)systems, more holistic and speculative dimensions are needed to be considered. In the field of design, Systemic Design and Speculative Design are considered to have the capacities to deal with systemic complexity and critically consider future uncertainty. Therefore, this study aims to explore from the theoretical level to the operational level to understand if and how Systemic Design and Speculative Design can help to expand the Systemic and Speculative dimensions into Service Design. Through literature review and expert interviews, this paper presents the theoretical relationships between these three approaches and discusses the opportunities and criticalities of approach integration. In the end, we propose three future research directions and open up open questions about Service Design evolution in Systemic and Speculative dimensions.

Artisanal production is crucial in sustaining the socioeconomic, cultural, and environmental fabric of rural and Indigenous communities, supporting the livelihoods, identity, and collective memory of artisan communities. However, globalization plus market pressures marginalize these traditions, prioritizing external consumer expectations over cultural integrity. While designers have sought to support artisans through collaborative efforts, such initiatives risk replicating Western-centric frameworks that undermine local knowledge and reinforce power asymmetries. This paper examines how equal collaboration, rooted in trust and flexibility, offers participatory engagement while promoting equitable partnerships from a designer-activist perspective. Drawing on the ARTESANICO laboratory, an organic, practice-led design initiative in Colombia and Ecuador, the study highlights the importance of bridging knowledge systems and rethinking participatory methods while resisting Western-centric frameworks that risk recolonizing craft production. The findings highlight how reframing design as a reciprocal and activist practice can support artisans' agency, decolonize knowledge exchange, and contribute to sustainable, community-driven development.