| Title | 24. Better Together |
|---|---|
| Subtitle | Towards a new organising principle and mindset for co-creation |
| Contributor | Nikita Asnani (author) |
| Inca Hide-Wright (author) | |
| Jess Humphreys (author) | |
| Bo Kelestyn (author) | |
| Jean Mutton (author) | |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.11647/obp.0462.24 |
| Landing page | https://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0462/chapters/10.11647/obp.0462.24 |
| License | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ |
| Copyright | Nikita Asnani; Inca Hide-Wright; Jess Humphreys; Bo Kelestyn; Jean Mutton; |
| Publisher | Open Book Publishers |
| Published on | 2025-07-02 |
| Long abstract | This chapter argues that we are at a pivotal moment requiring a fundamental shift in mindset to co-create a “new now” in education. By integrating design thinking and service design with emergent strategy, a new organising principle emerges—one grounded in collegiality, collaboration, and radical safety. It advocates for a genuinely co-creative approach: working with, not just for, students and staff. Emphasising trust in the process and the importance of inclusive, empathetic engagement, the chapter highlights how the journey of innovation and change is as transformative for the change-maker as it is for those affected by the change. |
| Page range | pp. 283–294 |
| Print length | 12 pages |
| Language | English (Original) |
Nikita Asnani (she/her—https://nikitaasnani.wixsite.com/website) is an alumnus of the University of Warwick, where she pursued her postgraduate degree in Humanitarian Engineering with Sustainability and her undergraduate degree in Economics. She is the author of the children’s book, The Girl who Loved to Talk to Her Ideas. She has delivered several talks, workshops, and lectures, including her most-recent TEDx talk at the University of Warwick, exploring how her identity shaped her creative confidence and book-writing journey, as a brown woman and a first-time author. She is currently building her design consultancy, SikhixDesign, to decolonise design thought and processes through her background as a South-Asian Sikh woman. She has been awarded the Student Partnership Impact Award in 2023, for her role in championing robust student support networks, as well as the Masters Student of the Year 2022, awarded by FindAMasters and FindAPhD. Nikita hosts the Designing Together Diaries podcast with Inca Hide-Wright, to champion the use of ‘Student Experience Focused Design’ in Higher Education, and is the Student Project Officer of the Designing Together project and LinkedIn community.
Inca Hide-Wright (she/her—http://www.linkedin.com/in/inca-hide-wright) is a current Warwick Graduate Management Trainee, Alumni of the WIHEA (Warwick International Higher Education Academy https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/academy/) and co-lead of the WIHEA Building Belonging Project and Learning Circle. Inca’s interest in community, engagement, and belonging began long before her time at Warwick University. Inca’s work in this space continues to be recognised institutionally, nationally, and internationally; collaborating with fellow Higher Education institutions and charities. In recognition, Inca is the recipient of the Outstanding Student Contribution Award (2022) as well as being nominated for social inclusion award ‘Belonging through Culture’ (2025) and Collaborative Award for Teaching Excellence (2025). Inca first learned about design thinking, as a concept and its implementation, when completing the Warwick Employability Challenge. Design thinking has stayed with Inca and has been successfully implemented in the University of Warwick Widening Participation project, Hope for the Future (https://warwick.ac.uk/study/outreach/whatweoffer/post-16-programmes/hope4thefuture/), and as a Project Officer on Designing Together, which won the Collaborative Warwick Award for Teaching Excellence (2024). Inca continues to utilise design thinking to strive towards positive change, with her current focus on the Higher Education student experience, with particular focus on building belonging.
Jess Humphreys (she/her) is the Director of the Warwick International Higher Education Academy (WIHEA—https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/academy/). WIHEA is the UK’s first institutional academy for staff and students engaged in the advancement of learning and teaching excellence. WIHEA fosters inclusive partnerships and supports the education and student experience strategy, embedding innovative approaches to learning and teaching. Jess was previously the lead for the Learning Design Consultancy Unit (LDCU), bringing together colleagues from across the institution, and providing space for sharing practice and support around the design of blended learning. The impact of the LDCU work was recognised nationally with an Advance HE Collaborative Award for Teaching Excellence (CATE) in 2022. As a design thinking champion within her institution, Jess has embedded design thinking methodologies within her practice, supporting colleagues with their own projects and exploring new ways to embed the student voice in design particularly around digital education. She continues to be inspired by staff and students involved in this area of work, most recently co-leading the Designing Together project (https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/academic-development/app/tel/ldcu/designingtogether/) and community (https://www.linkedin.com/groups/12828238/).
Dr Bo Kelestyn (she/her—https://www.linkedin.com/in/bozhena-kelestyn/) works as an Associate Professor and Course Director for the MSc in Management of Information Systems and Digital Innovation, at the Warwick Business School (WBS). Prior to this role, Bo worked in multiple Departments at Warwick, including leading on the early embedding of the Education Strategy across all thirty-five academic Departments, and becoming the youngest Director of Student Experience at Warwick. As a design thinking academic and practitioner, Bo has designed and led several award-winning interdisciplinary modules on design thinking, innovation, and entrepreneurship, and was the lead design thinking tutor for The Guardian Masterclass. Bo is the creator of the Warwick Secret Challenge, a problem-solving workshop with elements of design thinking, which has become a key methodology to tackle innovation challenges at Warwick through authentic student-staff co-creation. Based on this methodology, Bo also created Challenge X, and co-created the Warwick Employability Challenge and the Warwick Sustainability Challenge. Bo hosts the Student Experience by Design podcast (https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/sxbydesign/) to champion the use of design thinking in Higher Education, and is the co-lead of the Designing Together project (https://www.designing-together.org/) and LinkedIn community (https://www.linkedin.com/groups/12828238/).
Following a degree at Lancaster University in Educational Research, Jean Mutton (she/her) began her career in Higher Education administration and management in 1982. Over the years, Jean has managed many Registry and Faculty-based administration teams, covering the student journey from Admissions to Graduation both in the UK and working with collaborative programmes overseas. In 2007, Jean joined the Student Experience Team at the University of Derby, where she led a range of projects to enhance the student journey, with a particular focus on equality and diversity, and the international and BME student experience. In 2010, a JISC-funded project led Jean to service design and a new approach to bring improvements to the student and staff experience of enrolment and transition. Since she stepped down from her role at Derby in 2015, Jean has been working as a consultant across the sector and has worked with universities across the four nations in the UK and led sessions at many conferences on process improvement and using design to enhance the student experience. Jean is a co-founder of the Service Design in Education community (https://sdined.co.uk/) and co-editor of the ground-breaking Transforming Higher Education With Human-Centred Design book (https://sd4he.co.uk/). Email: muttonjean@gmail.com; LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeanmutton/