Multilevel Coordination Strategy for Service Design aimed at Supporting Inland Areas Policies

Due to the demographic, economic and political power of the central urban areas, the more distant territories - known as inland areas - tend to be subjected to rather than determine new development policies, such as investments in essential services and infrastructure. Therefore, actively heeding the voice of citizens becomes a problem of institutional design, so heading towards multi-level coordination seems to be a convincing solution in order to improve citizens advocacy towards policy makers and thus correct this imbalance. The research proposal analyzes three forms of engagement in service design, designing a single, complex interconnected system: civic activism at the micro level, advocacy in umbrella-institutions at the middle level, and knowledge circulation and capacity building in European multi-actor organization at the macro level. Through six evaluation criteria - relevance, coherence, effectiveness, efficiency, impactfulness and sustainability - and with the help of service design and strategic design tools, as well as case studies, the research analyzes the possible scope of potential interventions to improve policies, programmes and projects determining outputs, outcomes and impact meaningful medium to long- term effects on citizens, enterprises and public administrations in inland areas.