Students mental health is declining. StudyWell is a project aiming at positive impact on student mental health in student cities in Norway; by integrating relational welfare with service design, and the study environment as a starting point. We discussfour implementation challenges: First, co-design depends on a shared mindset across disciplinary boundaries. Secondly, balancing the lenses of individuals, community, system and future require facilitation. Thirdly, societal impact requires continuous partner anchoring. Finally, approaches must not further pathologize university student.

There is a mismatch between the way public services are designed, and the chronic dilemmas of the welfare state. Through two case studies we show how tool-dependent, instrumental and systems-oriented approaches fall short in tackling these dilemmas, and how the there is a need for a new, relational turn in design. Relational design takes into account interdependencies and dynamic situation of society, and calls for a new design vocabulary that discusses and approaches the relational aspects and opens up for a more situational and sensitive design agency.