Our world has shifted radically on its axis, creating new challenges and issues which are becoming much more pressing and immediate. It is clear that traditional design approaches and a problem-solution focus are limited and unable to tackle the risks currently facing human and ecosystem safety and wellbeing. The fundamental question facing design is how do we approach these large-scale projects from a design perspective? We need a new model for design.

Against this background, the Design for Safety Grand Challenge sponsored by Logitech was implemented between November 2020 and February 2021, bringing together our ambitions for large-scale design and research to address this urgent design need. Established as a collaborative project, the Design for Safety Grand Challenge was not intended to find immediate answers to global challenges, but to focus a conversation about how we approach and design safer future societies.

This report provides an overview and analysis of key findings from the project. Over 400 students participated in the project from a wide range of disciplines and cultures — spanning technology, science, design products, services, materials, innovation, and craftsmanship, involving a multiplicity of stakeholders ranging large technological companies, world-renowned scientific institutions, academic experts, think-tanks, civil society, and public sector organisations. The students – many of whom had never met each other before – collaborated remotely online in teams of 4-5 people from around 50 countries. The effort of this group amounted to some 64,000 hours of creative design thinking aimed at making the future of the world a safer place. They were supported by a group of over 30 academic staff and invited guests and experts.