 | ServDes 2023: Service Design and Innovation Conference 2023 COPPE/ UFRJ + PUC-Rio Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, July 11-14, 2023 |
| Conference website | http://www.servdes2023.org |
| Submission link | https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=servdes2023 |
| Abstract registration deadline | November 28, 2022 |
| Submission deadline | November 28, 2022 |
| Workshops and Student Forum papers | November 28, 2022 |
The Service Design and Innovation Conference is the premier research conference for exchanging knowledge within Service Design and service innovation studies. Even if the conference is research-focused, the format and the selection of publications are relevant for academics, practitioners and industry. ServDes is organised around themes that are defined by the conference committee and organisers. The papers are peer-reviewed in a double-blind review process and published in the conference proceedings.
The ServDes 2023 is organized by COPPE/UFRJ - Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, PUC-Rio - Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro/DAD and LiveWork.
Entanglements and flows: service encounters and meanings
Alternative worldviews and valorization of local knowledge and practices increasingly question how service innovators and researchers consider the intersections among nature, culture and society. Aspects such as otherness, justice, spirituality, vulnerability or improvisation, among others, are redefining service encounters and ecosystems. Discussions of human-nonhuman relations are challenging user-centred design approaches.
These processes explicitly or implicitly question service research and practices regarding the focus of its activities: services. What (how, who or when) is a service?
It has been a learning process that includes academic and non-academic knowledge and highlights contrasts between alternative and mainstream practices, which may increasingly lead to new theoretical developments and political consequences. Service designers and innovators may use their skills to hear multiple voices and ideas, get entangled in their localities and navigate unexpected flows to evidence new service meanings.ServDes 2023 aims to explore new perspectives on these continually reframed questions and their consequences on service design theory and practices.
Rio de Janeiro is the location of ServDes 2023. The city is economically driven by the service sector, composed of formally designed service provisions and a meshwork of informal, imprecise, improvised, unacknowledged services. Different social groups and workers collide or dialogue in various public or private spaces. This location offers immersive experiences on multiple aspects of the service phenomena, supporting the conference's central theme.
Themes
We welcome submissions that explore the following themes, but are not restricted to:
Social innovation, localities and transformative processes
Social innovation processes may reveal the emergence of new service ideas, or services may be designed to support local transformative processes. These changing processes may be referred to and impact neighbourhoods or cities. This situated dimension may include new service encounters and new local ecosystems, which may be supported or hindered by digital technologies and platforms.
Services, business and social economy
Services may express the emergence of local autonomy and the resilience of communities and ecosystems. They may integrate the framework of a creative social economy, including services related to informality and understood under the "effectuation" theory of entrepreneurship. Services may operate based on complementary currencies and be part of a circular or a distributed economy model.
Reimagining work: service or servitude
Services express the potential of designers and innovators as political agents. That is, as actors capable to influence the power balance in service provisions and service encounters. Enabling ecosystems, and in particular digital platforms, maybe express new forms of servitude. There would be a call for worker-centred design activities, or for reimagining work relations and processes in services.
Services and relationships: humans, beyond and below
Many services are focused on human relationships. Usually, strangers meet for the first time and collaborate to co-produce a service, but many evolve or rely on continuous and intensive collaborations and relationships. There may be ways for designers and innovators to navigate or get entangled in these human encounters. Services however may be increasingly reframed by more-than-human, posthuman and less-than-human (dehumanizing) perspectives.
Services, technologies and futures
Technological development continuously opens possibilities for service design, and in this process, agency, capabilities and power are distributed across humans, machines and the natural systems in different ways. Technodiversity also emerges as a vision where technological development could be related to systems of knowledge manifested in different localities: ways of life, and ways of sensing and ordering experiences. This may bring new challenges in designing social-technical systems as services.
Services between and beyond worlds
The possibilities of decolonial approaches to services expressed also with the term “autonomous design", include challenging commercial and modernizing aims to propose placed-based approaches and to embrace multiple worlds. This pluriversal perspective may challenge usual service definitions and ideas. Not to forget the influence of feminist perspectives which are opening up new approaches to services. New design communities and networks may collaborate in the constitution of a "designerly" way of conceiving services.
Services for Emergency: disasters, war, refugees, pandemic
Designers and innovators around the world, in alliance with other disciplines, had to navigate a global pandemic. New and old challenges are continually renewed, which requires quick local responses and strategic problem-solving capabilities. Challenges are related to war, refugees, and natural disasters, among others. Designers and innovators have developed and explored new possibilities for their practices on services under such pressing demands and constraints.
Other Themes
Submissions on other themes are also welcomed, related to the conference's main topic.
Submission Guidelines
All papers must be original and not simultaneously submitted to another journal or conference. The following paper categories are welcome:
Long Papers
We invite submission of advanced and high-quality papers of up to 6000 words (including abstract, tables, references, and figure captions) that address the conference theme and make a substantive contribution as critiques, theorisation, or knowledge production in the service design field, with implications for research and practice. Selection of long papers submissions will be based on the strongest potential for acceptance in indexed journals, in particular, the best papers will be invited to compose a special issue of the Strategic Design Research Journal - SDRJ (http://revistas.unisinos.br/index.php/sdrj).
Download long/short paper submission template: http://www.servdes2023.org/templates/ServDes.2023_LongShortPapers_template.docx
Short Papers
We invite exploratory, speculative, and/or provocative works of up to 3000 (including abstract, tables, references, and figure captions) words that address the conference theme, including those in progress. The short paper track aims to provide opportunities for lively and respectful discussion.
Download long/short paper submission template: http://www.servdes2023.org/templates/ServDes.2023_LongShortPapers_template.docx
Workshops
Workshops submitted should address one of all the conference themes. We invite submission in two categories:
1. Thematic workshops (1.5hrs): Proposals that explore concepts, theories, processes, frameworks, practices, and pragmatics through a smaller workshop format. Venues will be provided but please include specific requirements, such as materials, facilities, and technologies in your proposal.
2. Embedded workshops (1.5hrs): Proposals that are embedded within a workplace, in the field or at the site of specific service design-oriented projects in Rio de Janeiro. These workshops give participants an insight into local practices and working environments. Please note that submissions can be made by visitors from outside Rio de Janeiro if they can partner with a local practice.
Download workshop submission template: http://www.servdes2023.org/templates/ServDes.2023_Workshop_template.docx
Student's Forum
We invite Undergraduate, Master, and Ph.D. students and recent graduates to a dedicated day of discussions, workshops and networking held during the conference. This forum aims to provide a platform for you to discuss your work, exchange ideas, gain feedback from recent graduates, network with experts and emerging practitioners in Service Design, share examples of work underway or completed and celebrate excellent work. Please submit a 300-word abstract including how you are addressing one or more of the conference subthemes.
Download student's forum template: http://www.servdes2023.org/templates/ServDes.2023_StudentForum_template.docx
Important dates
6 th June 2022 Call for submissions
18th July 2022 System open for submissions
3rd October 2022 Deadline for submissions of long papers, short papers. (postponed to 24 Oct)
28th November 2022 Deadline for submissions of workshops and student forum.
6 th January 2023 Notification to authors (accepted or rejected) and feedback
31st March 2023 Camera ready papers deadline for accepted submissions
11th to 14th July 2023 Conference dates
Please follow updates on our website: http://www.servdes2023.org.
Review process
All submissions will be blind peer-reviewed by an international review panel, according to evaluation criteria set by the scientific committee. Once reviewed, all authors will be notified of acceptance, conditional acceptance, or rejection. Submissions that are accepted conditionally will be required to address the feedback by the camera-ready resubmission date (please check the session “Important Dates” above). Long Papers that are unfortunately rejected will have the opportunity to rewrite and submit as Short Paper.
All submissions must be anonymous and must not contain the name(s) of author(s) or any references of institutions for the purposes of blind peer review. Please ensure these are removed (including file names, captions, etc) prior to upload. You can check when the system will be opened for submissions in the session “Important Dates” in this document. Acceptance of notification will be sent by e-mail. Those accepted will be required to attend and present, discuss questions, and engage with the conference program. This means at least one author must register for the conference for the submission to be included in the proceedings. All accepted and revised submissions must be formatted in the ServDes.2023 template and submitted to the conference system (please check when the system will be opened for submissions in the session “Important Dates” in this document).
Publication
ServDes 2023 proceedings will be published by Linköping University Electronic Press.
Venue
The conference will be held on the campus of PUC-Rio - Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro and on the campus of UFRJ - Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro.
Contact
All questions about submissions should be emailed to info@servdes2023.org
ServDes 2023 Committee
General chairs: Carla Cipolla (COPPE/UFRJ) and Manuela Quaresma (PUC-Rio/DAD)
- COPPE/UFRJ: Tharcisio Fontainha; Amanda Xavier; Ingrid Bico; Matheus Ventura; Larissa Farias.
- PUC-Rio/DAD: Claudia Mont'Alvão; Roberta Portas; Carlo Franzato; Guilherme Toledo; Ellen Gonzales.
- LiveWork: Luis Alt, Bruno Santos, Ana Terra, Luis Machado.