Master in Creativity & Innovation

Contents

Research conducted by faculty and students addresses the following key areas:

1. Creativity

The research conducted offers a variety of perspectives on creativity with particular emphasis on the de Bono thinking methods. Academic research involves the understanding of creativity and its applications. Emphasis is placed on the variety of uses of creative methodologies and on the practical application of the tools. The topics addressed include: the importance of perception, Edward de Bono’s tools and methods, lateral thinking, six thinking hats, DATT, CoRT, other generic creativity tools and applications such as TRIZ, SCAMPER, CPS and mind mapping. Creativity involves the shaping of meaning and creation of new meaning arising from anticipated futures.

2. Innovation Research projects at the institute cover the tenants of what makes an organisation creative. Academics and students look at how creativity can thrive within all types of organisations, private and public, and what distinguishes an organisation that fosters innovation from another where the status quo is taken to be acceptable. Past research has addressed the nature of specific barriers to organisational creativity and what that turns creative ideas into innovations. Innovation is essential in grounding creativity in practice and regularising emergent processes from creativity, foresight and entrepreneurship to produce a production logic beside the key model of enterprise.

3. Entrepreneurship
Student research in this field addresses the creation of a new venture as a model of entrepreneurship and how to simulate the development of a new venture through the creative practices of the participants. Entrepreneurship, entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial behaviour in organisational contexts is addressed taking into account the private entrepreneurial individual, the corporate and the social entrepreneur. This field covers the multiple perspectives informed by psychology, sociology, strategy, economics, philosophy, business/management, and the field of entrepreneurship. Student research explores the processes of entrepreneurship in the discovery, evaluation and the exploitation of opportunities. This follows a logical sequence from initial ideas and innovation through the emergence and evaluation of the opportunity into a planned and shaped activity and into the implementation process. The field provides an alternative perspective to traditional theory in business and management in which rationality, analysis and prediction are prominent to one which is predominantly heuristic, iterative, reflexive, reflective and experimental.

4. Foresight
Foresight is a field of knowledge characterized by interdisciplinary knowledge. Foresight may focus on visionary knowledge regarding alternative futures and challenges included in them. Futures research offers futures-oriented information to back up decision-making in the public and private sectors. Research projects address the history of futures studies, theories of value thinking, ethical foundations of futures studies, as well as the historical and philosophical background of this field of knowledge. Research topics addressed include: Values, time and social transition; Systems thinking and complexity; Delphi as a Futures Studies method; Futures Studies concepts, tools and working methods; Foresight methods and scenarios.