# Soft Power of Design Thinking as way for Eco-social Prospective Impact Assessment - Savonia AMK > The development of prospective impact assessment process which is based on Design Thinking and the Frame Innovation. ## Introduction Could the very well-known design thinking actually be the new Pink for the impact assessment? Solving a systemic problem requires the ability to take on new perspectives. It is typical for our current challenges that ecological and social needs and meanings cannot be separated. Creating new, boarder thinking requires more holistic, softer and embodied relationships with the world. This article outlines the development of our prospective impact assessment and its process (PIAP) which are based on Design Thinking and the Frame Innovation Framework. ## Future DiverCities Project The development of impact assessment is part of the international four-year project (2023–2026) Future DiverCities (FDC) funded by the European Commission (Creative Europe) and implemented by European organisations seeking to re-imagine culture-led regeneration of urban empty spaces in an ecological way (NEB, 2023). The project has pilots in 9 European Cities. Each pilot has its mechanism which is believed to make change according to FDC’s Theory of Change. (FDC, 2021.) ## Prospective Impact Assessment Process (PIAP) The Prospective Impact Assessment Process, PIAP, is a forward-looking process for recognising possible future impacts and proactively changing actions according to this understanding. It can be applied before and during a project to recognise potential impacts. Our design perspective is related to future-led work and helps to outline the activities and outputs of the project. The work stems from the need to perceive the impacts of a planned project as early as possible and to review the direction of the project as it progresses. ### Methodology To tackle today’s wicked systemic problems, development processes require more comprehensive knowledge. We chose to base our PIAP on Frame Innovation by Kees Dorst (2015). At the core of Frame innovation is that everything must be kept open and under consideration. This approach fosters a reflective way of doing and helps to envision parallel futures, or – in our terms – impact scenarios, from which the most promising can be chosen. ### The Three Phases of PIAP The PIAP is divided into three main phases: 1. **Pre-phase:** The core team maps out the project and its current situation by asking: What has been done so far? What kinds of paradoxes or conflicts existed between the stakeholders or their actions? In this phase, the team designs the PIAP participatory workshop together with us and agrees on its goals and the main topic. 2. **Participatory phase:** Frame creation workshops are held together with the core project team, end-users, and stakeholders. During the workshops, the participants immerse themselves in the moment and ideate ‘What could be?’ and ‘How might we…?’ as planned in the pre-phase. The participants create and frame-storm new possible futures, recognise prospective impacts, and create impact scenarios. At the end of the workshop, they evaluate the prospective impacts they have recognised. 3. **Post-phase:** The core team of each pilot uses the participatory workshop results to plan out the next steps for the pilot project and ask: What would be the most effective next steps? ## Future Outlook The FDC pilots (Londa, Athens, Kuopio, and Timisoara) have been used as testbeds for developing the impact assessment process. We find PIAP as a flexible process and set of tools, which could be applied based on needs, situation, context and the pace of each development process. The development of PIAP is currently underway. The next steps are to concentrate on the post-phase of the project and an online version of the process for future workshops. We hope to develop the transformative potential of PIAP to build it into a process that supports change and change-making agency. ## Resources * [UIIN Conference Paper](https://www.theseus.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/866558/UIIN_Conference.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y) * [Future DiverCities Website](https://future-divercities.eu/) ## References * Autti, H., Pakarinen, L., Partio, J., & Eskelinen, T. 2024. Prospective Impact Assessment Process (PIAP) in Future Divercities Project (FDC). In Academic and Practitioner Proceedings of the 2024 UIIN Conference series: Challenges and solutions for fostering entrepreneurial universities and collaborative innovation, Madrid, Spain, 142–153. * Dorst, K. (2015). Frame Innovation: Create New Thinking by Design. Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA: The MIT Press. * FDC. Future DiverCities project plan. (2021) PROPOSAL_101055943-FD-CREA-CULT-2021-COOP-PART_B_Section_1.pdf * Irwin, T., Tonkinwise, C. & Kossoff, G. (2022) Transition Design: An Educational Framework for Advancing the Study and Design of Sustainable Transitions. * NEB. (2023) New European Bauhaus Compass. * Paldanius, K. & Kajanus, M. (2021) FDC Evaluation report final.pdf * Salonen, A. O., Laininen, E., Hämäläinen, J., Serling, S. (2023) ‘A Theory of Planetary Social Pedagogy’ In: Educational Theory, Volume 73, Number 4. pp. 615–637. Wiley Periodicals LLC.