When we think of innovation, R&D and New Product Development mainly come to mind. We think of product and service innovation, we think of new technologies and scientific discoveries. We think of startups and innovative companies. We think of granular innovations that, all combined, progress our society.

But what if, with these lenses and this conception, we were overlooking broader, impactful, societal types of innovation? What if we experimented and innovated at a broader, societal scale? What if we designed not just products and services, but new infrastructures, new industries, new living paradigms?

First, there is the belief that the opportunity exists for more systemic, broader innovation: think of renewed paradigms for urban design, supply chains, product ownership models, and so on. Such challenges ask for multiple companies and public administration to come to a table together to work on common solutions.

Secondly, there is the belief that most societies are ill-suited to tackle these broader, systemic challenges. Both the private sector and the public sector seem badly equipped to design high-level systemic innovation.

On the private side, since policy and/or infrastructural change are needed to tackle many systemic challenges, the private sector has a better game in waiting for the public sector to make the necessary changes and investments.

On the public side, the public sector can suffer from unimaginative thinking and may be blind to business opportunities that may arise down the road of a public innovation. Add to that a tendency of democracies to adapt innovation to the short-term political cycle, reducing the appeal and incentive for long-term investments.

And thirdly, even where healthy societal innovation occurs, with collaborations between public and private sector, there are few supporting agencies and consultancies available. In comparison to well consolidated advisory professional arms — like business consulting, advertisement agencies, or innovation consultancies —, societal design seems to be at its infancy, with a lack of specialised agencies.

This is where Redesigned, a manifesto for societal design, stands

Redesigned stands for ambitious, systemic projects that redefine entire paradigms, to promote the shift to more sustainable, preferable future frameworks, habits, products, or services. From urban redesign, to floating solar islands, to reimagined supply chains, Redesigned takes a big-picture view on large scale problems or industries, reimagines solutions, and envisions opportunity areas.

Redesigned approaches societal challenges with a unique perspective.

1. Large, systemic, fuzzy scopes. The future of mobility, the future of logistics, the future of cities, …: a broad scope allows for a broader analysis of problems, and for more creative multi-shaped solutions. Starting with a narrower scope is also possible, but at the condition of keeping a door open for pivots along the way. After all, when working on complex, wicked problem areas, tackling one problem could unlock neighbouring others (ideally even root problems); and similarly, designing a solution could create the opportunity to address other problems that were not originally on scope, but that benefit by the solution at hand. Keeping an open mind over what is on scope, and what is not, allows to find better and more efficient matches between systemic problems and systemic solutions.

2. Multi-disciplinary, multi-faceted solutions for multi-faceted problems. Redesigned does not want to be an engineering agency, nor a service design agency, nor a business consultancy. It wants to be all of this combined. After all, transformational opportunities may arise from using engineering technologies to improve services, in a viable manner.

3. Visionary thinking. Short political cycles in modern democracies meet an ever-decreasing attention span of the average human. The result is unambitious, short-term thinking, with limited grandiose, transformative ideas. The assumption of Redesigned is that there is more space for transformative, visionary, at times naïve ideas of the likes of the concentrical Grachten in Amsterdam or the grid of Diagonal in Barcelona, the reusable rocket paradigm mastered by SpaceX, the container standard in global supply chains, and so on.

4. Future-backward, not present-forward. Stronger focus is set on identifying future ideal scenarios, rather than moving incrementally from existing scenarios. This will easily make eyes roll. True, the world “as is” does constitute a fundamental starting point for innovation, but more disruptive thinking is unlocked when a blank sheet of paper is provided. This does not exclude the necessity to jot down a concrete, feasible roadmap.

5. Mix public & private, not either or. When working at systemic level, the co-operation of both private and public entities is almost always required. With some exceptions, Redesigned works mostly at the intersection of private and public domains, where the combined benefits of public and private innovation can be gained.

6. Ecosystem, not egosystem. Redesigned recognises that most solutions to complex, multi-polar problems will require multi-polar ecosystems. The collaboration and value exchange between an array of different actors is often a necessary condition to the creation of the designed solution.

In an increasingly complex society, we are required to think of increasingly complex solutions. Systemic, collaborative, futuristic, transformative ideas will be more important than ever, and we need the methodology, the organisations, and the talent to turn this into reality.