Defining the role of government in Smart Shipping

Background

Department for Transport (DfT) approached the UK Policy Lab to define a policy roadmap for Smart Shipping. This would include policies for driverless boats, for example. DfT aimed to achieve a vision to inform policy and support the UK maritime industry to embrace these new technologies.

Task

To support them, we at the UK Policy Lab held a Futures Lab workshop.

This was one of the Policy Lab’s largest workshops – involving nearly 90 experts from the industry, some of whom are Lords and Ministers. As in other workshops I’ve worked on, we knew some participants would be reluctant to engage. We needed to demonstrate the relevance of our tools and techniques while also producing the outcomes we set out to achieve.

My role and approach

I assisted the team with:

• Organising the session and supporting with logistics

• Producing visually compelling materials to support the workshop – including ‘Evidence Safari’ cards, ‘Styles of government intervention’ cards, posters, a roadmap canvas and a logo for the project

• Documenting the outcomes of the session

Results

The workshop was well-received by the industry and its outcomes flourished the relationship between Policy Lab and the Maritime Directorate. Their blog about this work was featured on Apolitical.

I was also proud to hear from Vasant Chari that my contribution set up new levels for their following workshops.

Policy Lab was a great learning experience for me. I shared some of my lessons about being a designer in policy in a blog post.