Imagination, reflexivity and agency in institutional change and public policy

A paper offering an introduction to one of the Conversations (tracks) at Participatory Design Conference 2026. Participatory design (PD) is increasingly embedded in public administrations and civic contexts addressing complex challenges such as climate transitions, social inequalities, migration, and digital governance. This positioning paper examines how PD operates within and in relation to institutional change and public policy through three intertwined lenses: imagination, reflexivity, and agency. Drawing on five full and five exploratory papers in the conversation on Civic Issues and Participation: Urban Matters, we analyze how PD expands civic imaginaries, enables reflexive critique of institutional relations and knowledge, and supports relational and distributed forms of agency across organisations and publics. The contributions demonstrate that PD is no longer confined to project-based interventions but is entangled with infrastructures, governance arrangements, and policy processes. Building on these insights, we sketch a future research agenda for PD that foregrounds embedded engagement, organisational learning, and epistemic justice, advancing the potential of participatory practices to contribute to more democratic, equitable, and sustainable institutional futures by working through the tensions between imagination, reflexivity, and agency in practice.