ILLUME
Unlocking Bright Ideas
Creativity is at the heart of human accomplishments, suffusing our lives. It is shaped by, and expressed within, our family environment, education, friendships, social groups, hobbies, society, culture and occupation. Creativity contributes to wellbeing throughout our lifespan and is recognised as crucial to our economy. Our education system has been tasked to foster creative thinking skills to develop the workplace innovators of tomorrow. Thus, a key challenge is to develop ways to promote creativity throughout our lives drawing on an understanding of the many forms that creativity can take.
ILLUME is a multi-disciplinary research centre whose mission is to work with individuals and organisations to explore, understand, and develop the creative process. The centre brings together creativity researchers and practitioners to illuminate creativity and to develop cutting edge, evidence-based approaches to facilitate creative thinking in a wide range of social, educational and workplace settings.
ILLUME is:
- Expanding the evidence base in creativity research through a portfolio of innovative projects that join up the different layers of creativity from biological mechanisms, through to cognitive, social, organisational, environmental and experiential perspectives
- Developing evidence-based interventions that promote creativity in diverse settings and disseminating these interventions to audiences including schools, businesses and academics
ILLUME is hosted in the Faculty of Arts and Human Sciences and benefits from input across several University of Surrey Faculties giving it a strong multi-disciplinary focus.
Contact details
Dr Paul SowdenDirector of ILLUME p.sowden@surrey.ac.uk | Dr Almuth McDowallDeputy Director of ILLUME a.mcdowall@surrey.ac.uk | Dr Birgitta GaterslebenDeputy Director of ILLUME b.gatersleben@surrey.ac.uk |
