Professor Alison Prendiville is internationally recognized for her systemic service design research. Her work is highly collaborative and relational, engaging with health and social care professionals and communities to integrate local knowledge with technology. This supports the development of new products, services, and policies aimed at addressing societal challenges such as Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR). Her research is transdisciplinary and sits within the broader field of social design, where her use of human-centred, place-based co-design methods connects practices, technologies, and policies to support healthcare transformation.

Currently, she is working on the DOSA (Diagnostics for a One Health User-Driven Solution to AMR) project in collaboration with partners from the UK and India. This initiative aims to develop a simple, community-based diagnostic test and service for urinary tract infections (UTIs). She is also contributing to an NIHR-funded project to improve the blood culture pathway in three NHS hospitals. Her previous work includes collaborating with nurses in the UK to reimagine nursing practices. In India, her research has extended to poultry dairy and aquaculture farming to explore antibiotic use across supply chains.

Alison has a keen interest in exploring how design can serve as a medium for co-creating and translating knowledge among diverse stakeholders. Her work draws on service design and anthropology to analyse and amplify the role of culture in healthcare, enabling socially responsive interventions.

Her research has been published in books and journals such as Designing for Health, Design Issues, and Service Design and Service Thinking in Healthcare. She co-edited Designing for Service and The Bloomsbury Handbook of Service Design, set for publication in 2025.