The COVID-19 pandemic challenged everyone to reflect collectively on lessons learned and build back better futures. As designers, how can we engage with the wider design research and practice ecosystems within the new landscape to achieve ambitious goals? Design processes are very often a synthesis, bringing together elements from different disciplines, groups of people or practice fields. Along with co-creation processes in which participation and input from various stakeholder groups are prioritised, design processes are inviting of cross-relational interactions. Examining what this means for design research in the context of recovery means re-examining existing networks of relations of design research with a world changed by the pandemic at both a micro and macro level. It requires exploring our agency of forming and sustaining relations while also adopting a pragmatic approach to a research landscape changed by an urgency for practical solutions for fostering recovery and building resilience.