Guidance
The Public Design Evidence Review
The Public Design Evidence Review (PDER) explores the role and value of design in the public sector. An overview of the report package can be found below.
Documents
Details
The PDER offers a rich set of insights from sources including peer-reviewed evidence, practical case studies, personal reflections, and emergent hypotheses. It consists of the following:
- ‘PDER Brief Guide’: an executive summary and primer to the package of reports. The guide also contains a suggested reading order for the reports, as well as forewords from Georgia Gould OBE MP, Parliamentary Secretary for the Cabinet Office and from Susan Acland-Hood, Joint Head of the Policy Profession.
- ‘Public Design for Transformational Change: Perspectives from International Design Thought Leaders’: a thematic analysis of in-depth interviews with 15 Design Thought Leaders.
- The ‘Case Study Bank’: 13 examples of public design drawn from across the UK public sector.
- ‘Public Design in the UK Government: A Review of the Landscape and its Future Development’: a commentary drawing on the documents above, a related Design Council report and the academics’ broader experience.
- ‘Reflections from the Human-Centred Design Science team, Department for Work and Pensions’: a thought piece produced by the publication team as the last stage of the review, drawing on their wider experience with transformation initiatives.
- Three literature reviews by a consortium of academics with expertise in both design and public policy:
- ‘Literature Review Paper 1 - Public Design’ explores definitions, outcomes, capabilities, and conditions;
- ‘Literature Review Paper 2 - Public Value’ considers frameworks for measuring outcomes; and
- ‘Literature Review Paper 3 - Public Design and Public Value’ examines evidence linking the two.
Updates to this page
Published 17 July 2025