DoWell Co-Design Workshop and Lecture Series 2025-2026: Session 1

DoWell Co-Design Workshop and Lecture Series 2025-2026

The DoWell research group offers an expanded interdisciplinary workshop and lectures series this year to provide the opportunity for colleagues to explore an exciting range of different topics, including practices and approaches to co-designing in various health and care contexts. The format of the monthly sessions is more flexible this year, including online presentations and panel discussions as well as in-person workshops for colleagues to get hands-on experience and get involved in the different approaches to co-design. The workshops aim to provide a forum and time for colleagues to meet and get to know each other’s work, and to foster discussion and cross-faculty collaboration.

We are looking forward seeing you all in the workshop.

Kristina Niedderer & DoWell group

Sessio 1: Designing for Connection: Co-Designing Everyday Systems of Care

Dr Leigh-Anne Hepburn

Head of Design, University of Sydney

Deputy Director (Design) at the Sydney Policy Lab.

How can collaborative design strengthen the relational, social, and institutional ties that support wellbeing? Moving beyond service improvement, I position co-design as a way to weave together everyday systems of care, connecting individuals, communities, and organisations through shared making and meaning. Drawing on examples from health, policy, and community practice, this talk highlights how co-design fosters belonging, trust, and adaptive systems that respond to people’s lived experiences. It invites participants to consider care not as a service transaction, but as a collective, ongoing practice of connection and reciprocity.