Designing policy from the inside out: notes from the PolyFutures off-site day

Hidden corridors, bustling canteens and quiet attics with panoramic views - spaces usually not accessible became part of a shared exploration during the PolyFutures Off-site Design Day. Thanks to the openness of colleagues from the European Commission and the European Parliament, policy designers from across Europe (and beyond) were invited into the everyday environments where EU policymaking takes shape in Brussels. 

Our idea was simple: to bring those shaping EU policies and institutional processes into the same room as design experts working in innovation, human-centred transformation, and futures thinking. Too often, the Commission is perceived as a large brueacracy. We sought to reveal it as a living environment: composed of people, spaces, informal interactions and tangible practices that directly influence how policies are conceived and implemented. 

The “Off-site” Design Day consisted of nine sessions hosted in different Directorates-General and institutions (including Digital Services, Human Resources and Security, Environment, Structural Reform Support, Communications Networks, Content and Technology, Agriculture and Rural Development, Communication, the New European Bauhaus Unit within the Joint Research Centre, and the European Parliament) during which participants engaged with a wide range of topics. These ranged from sustainable textiles and digital regulation to organisational transformation, citizen engagement, and the role of design in geopolitics. 

The topics explored included: 

1. User-centred digital innovation

2. Design for organisational transformation

3. Designers and geopolitics

4. From Fast Fashion to Circular Style: the EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles

5. Multilevel governance in practice

6. Regulating digital services

7. Farmers of the future: learning sustainability in agricultural schools

8. The New European Bauhaus initiative

9. European Citizens’ Panels and citizen engagement 

One session explored the implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). While designed to protect privacy, GDPR is often experienced by citizens through “those annoying cookie banners” that have become ubiquitous online. We reflected on how a crucial piece of legislation intended to protect privacy has gradually become fertile ground for manipulative practices such as dark patterns, or deceptive interfaces, and is resulting in consent fatigue. The conversation revealed that regulation does not end with the legal text. It materialises through interfaces that shape behaviour, revealing the importance of design in ensuring that well-intentioned legislation does not fail during implementation. 

Another session was dedicated to design as a driver of organisational transformation. Despite the growing availability of innovation pathways, participatory approaches and carefully mapped user stories, their uptake remains uneven.  

One of the strongest observations raised by participants was that design methods cannot simply be “uploaded” into organisations through documentation alone. As a result, the discussion gradually shifted away from the question: “How do we design better tools?” toward a deeper one:  

“How do organisations become capable of using design approaches at all?” 

Meanwhile, the session hosted at the European Parliament on Designers and Geopolitics explored long-term governance, particularly in the context of defence and strategic futures. What changes when we move from merely discussing futures to actually experiencing them? What if citizens, policymakers, and institutions could prototype, enact, and inhabit possible future conditions rather than only reading reports about them? Participants reflected on the convergence of participatory design, speculative governance, and experiential policymaking. 

These examples reveal the breadth of discussions that took place throughout the day, reflecting both the richness of the design discipline and the ways it continues to evolve in response to the growing complexity of policymaking. The day’s exchanges highlighted how design extends beyond problem-solving tools to become a means of navigating uncertainty, mediating between perspectives, and enabling more adaptive forms of governance.  

For this special event, we collaborated with the International Design in Government Community. The closing session, facilitated by Martin Jordan and Kara Kane offered a space to reflect on what we had learned, what assumptions had been challenged, and what possible next steps could emerge. These reflections were connected to the broader themes of PolyFutures: trusting, sensing, experimenting, and daring. 

A key ambition of the day was to contribute to the demystification of EU policymaking for design professionals. By opening institutional spaces and conversations, participants gained a clearer understanding of the constraints, competing priorities, and often frustratingly divergent needs that a single regulation is expected to address. At the same time, policymakers were able to engage with a design-for-policy community that is increasingly mature, diverse and embedded across public administrations in Europe and beyond. Ultimately, what emerged was not a contrast between the process of designing and conventional policymaking, but a shared concern:  how to act effectively within complex systems. This perspective becomes possible when designers develop a deeper understanding of institutional realities and when policymakers recognise the practical value of design practice.  

We are grateful for the openness and trust shown both by our colleagues from EU institutions and by our guests, whose active participation made the entire event so rich and thought-provoking.