Chair : • Michael Howlett, Simon Fraser University, Canada, howlett@sfu.ca Abstract Policy design extends to both the means or mechanisms through which policy goals are given effect, and to the goals themselves, since goal articulation inevitably involves considerations of feasibility, or what is practical or possible to achieve in given conjunctures or circumstances given the means at hand. That is, public policies are the result of efforts made by governments to alter aspects of their own or social behaviour in order to carry out some end or purpose and are comprised of complex arrangements of policy goals and policy means. These efforts can be more or less systematic and the ends and purposes attempted to be attained are multifarious and wide- ranging. Should all of these efforts be thought of as embodying a conscious ‘design’ ? In most cases the answer is ‘yes’. Even when the goals pursued are not laudable, such as personal enrichment or military adventurism, or when the knowledge or the means utilized is less than scientific, such as religious or ideologically inspired dogma or implementation preferences, and even when these efforts are much more ad hoc and much less systematic than might be desired, as long as a desire for effective resource use in goal attainment guides policy-making, it will involve some effort at design. However, this does not mean that all designs are equal or generate equal results and systematic study of policy designs and design processes are required for the field to advance. As an area of study Policy Design engendered a large literature in the 1980s and 1990s with prominent figures in the US, Canada, Europe and Australia such as Lester Salamon, Patricia Ingraham, Malcolm Goggin, John Dryzek, Hans Bressers, Helen Ingram and Anne Schneider, G.B. Doern, Stephen Linder and B. Guy Peters, Renate Mayntz, Christopher Hood, Eugene Bardach, Evert Vedung, Peter May, Frans van Nispen and Michael Trebilock writing extensively on policy formulation, policy instrument choice and the idea of designing policy institutions and outcomes. After the early 1990s, however, this literature tailed off and although some writings on policy design have continued to flourish in specific fields such as economics, energy and environmental studies, in the fields of public administration and public policy more generally the idea of ‘design’ was often replaced by the study of institutional forms and decentralized governance arrangements. The set of panels proposed herein is aimed at revisiting the older literature and re-establishing design as a serious area of concern in the policy sciences. The Panel is composed of three topics : • (1) Policy Design : What is it ? - which explores the definitions, metaphors and concepts used in the study of policy design as both a subject (noun) and a process (verb) ; • (2) Policy Design : Who Does It ? - which explores the process of policy formulation and how design considerations enter into it ; and • (3) Policy Design : Where Is It Going ? - which provides an opportunity for discussions about contemporary trends and directions in policy design(s) and design research. References Linder, S. H., and B. G. Peters. “The Analysis of Design or the Design of Analysis ?” Policy Studies Review 7, no. 4 (1988) : 738–750.