Navigating Societal Change through Design: Leading Missions for a Prosperous Future

by Sara Gry Striegler, Julie Hjort

Overview

The social and environmental challenges we face today are complex and interdependent. Leaders and experts worldwide acknowledge that we cannot address them in isolation and that to keep doing so is to intensify the problem.

This book connects the dots between a group of diverse, but overlapping, professional domains: design, mission-oriented innovation, foresight and futures design, system innovation and leadership. The authors mix methodology and theory with real-life case studies and compelling visual models to aid readers in navigating a new story, balancing tensions in time scale and mindset, learning through experiments and working collaboratively.

Aimed at policy makers, practitioners and educators, this book encourages a new and heightened awareness of systemic change that can lead to societal transformation in support of a sustainable future.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781447375562
Publisher:	Policy Press
Publication date:	09/11/2025
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	216
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Sara Gry Striegler is CEO for Nordic Health Lab, founder of Kindred Lab for Transitions and Chair of the Social Innovation Academy.

Julie Hjort is COO at the Danish Design Center and Chair of the Maker Foundation.

Sara Gry Striegler is CEO for Nordic Health Lab and leads a matchmaking organisation cross-cutting and bridging the public healthcare system and private companies to co-create sustainable solutions. She is founder of Kindred Lab for Transitions and previously Director for Societal Transitions at Danish Design Center, pioneering the work with futures design and mission-oriented innovation. Over the past 15 years, Sara has worked to address complex societal challenges and drive change and innovation within the major agendas of health, welfare, youth mental health and ageing.

She is internationally recognised and part of the Top 50 WEF & Apolitical list Most Influential People Revolutionising Governance in the Futures Thinking category (2020). She is an experienced speaker and author of a chapter in the book Leadership of Public Innovation (2022, published in Danish) and Strategic innovation in Healthcare (2020, published in Danish), as well as a chapter on mission-oriented innovation in Sigge Winther Nielsen's anthology on wicked problems (2023).

Sara is Chair at The Social Innovation Academy and former external lecturer at the Technical University of Denmark.

Julie Hjort is the COO and Director of Green Transition at the Danish Design Center and spearheads the Center’s mission to accelerate the transition to a circular economy. She has been a driving force in developing a design-based approach to mission-oriented innovation that she has applied both at the DDC and in external partnerships to tackle sustainability challenges. For over a decade, Julie has worked with design, innovation, leadership and transformation in interdisciplinary and public/private partnerships.

Julie is Chair of Maker, an association for physical entrepreneurship that runs an urban prototyping lab in Copenhagen. She is a seasoned speaker on the topic of circular transformation and mission-oriented innovation. Julie was profiled as a prominent circular designer by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation (fall 2023). Julie holds an MA in Contemporary Culture and Dissemination from the University of Copenhagen.

Table of Contents

1. Five theoretical domains

Navigating a New Story

2. The imagination crisis

3. A preferred future

Navigating Balance

4. Holding the tension between opposing attitudes

5. Missions: Balancing top-down and bottom-up

Navigating Experiments

6. Untying the knot through experiments

7. Learning through hypothesis

Navigating Interdependence

8. Weaving new patterns collectively

9. Building coalitions

10. Closing and opening

Editorial Reviews

This is a hugely important book that fills the gap between design-led innovation practices and longer-term sustainable transitions.” Christian Bason, Transition Collective

“This book argues convincingly that the social and environmental challenges we face today are complex due to our current deeply embedded structures, systems and logic. With refreshing persistence, the authors state that systemic change is possible if we all play our part.” Jacqueline Cramer, Utrecht University(Emeritus)

“This book unpacks the enormous potential of approaching our complex socio-environmental challenges with integrative, navigational and design-led approaches.”

Banny Bannerjee, Stanford Universityand Global Change Labs

“This clear-eyed but hopeful book focuses on the pressing need for new narratives, new models and new logics. It does so through a thoughtful, far-reaching rendering of our complex shared landscape, but always leans into a future-facing, practice-oriented set of tools for thinking and acting with. It could not be more timely.” Dan Hill, The University of Melbourne

“An excellent survey of how we can do better at consciously shaping, designing and creating a future we would want to live in. The book gives a practical framework for navigating through a time of craziness and chaos towards something saner.” Geofff Mulgan, UniversityCollege London

“Navigating Societal Change through Design translates theory from systems thinking, missions, leadership and the design field into applicable, practice-oriented ideas relevant to all innovators who aim to impact our societal challenges.” Louise Pulford, Social Innovation Exchange

“We find ourselves in a time where the role of the policy maker is breaking apart – only to be reimagined and reassembled. A time where the policy maker of the future is no longer confined to the established system. Navigating Societal Change through Design offers concrete perspectives and new signposts for the policy entrepreneurs charting paths through uncharted and untamed waters.” Sigge Winther, Institute for Wicked Problems

“This practical and inspiring book blends design, systems thinking and transformational leadership to reimagine democracy with greater care and creativity. Like a toolkit for rebuilding a house, its clear visual models turn complex ideas into actionable steps. A must-read, especially for public servants and politicians.” Lisa Witter, Apolitical Foundation

“As society undergoes transformation, businesses are increasingly called upon to take responsibility – not just for profit but for shaping a sustainable and inclusive future. This book helps navigate these shifting responsibilities, providing actionable insights for businesses to contribute to a more conscious world.” Yuzuru Fukuda, Enterprise Division of Fujitsu

From the Publisher