‘Creativity’ is celebrated across the whole range of human enterprise. But what is it?
Is “creativity” the same thing in the sciences and the arts? Can individuals and disciplines learn from each other’s creative processes? How does individual creativity thrive in the professional ecosystems of collaborative projects and large-scale institutions? These are not new questions, and yet our understanding of them remains largely superficial.
The Creativity Observatory is an interdisciplinary research project funded by the EPSRC’s Bridging the Gaps programme. It uses qualitative methods to compare the types of creativity described by a diverse group of researchers at the University of Surrey. When a pure mathematician, for example, talks about “creativity” do they mean the same thing a Professor of law or choreographer does? What can they learn from each other’s experiences?
Phase 1
Phase 1 used thematically analysed interviews and group sessions to examine the role played by creativity in the lives and work of seven respected academics conducting pure or applied research into topics ranging from literary criticism and sociology to satellite engineering and the fight against meningitis.
Phase 2
The findings of Phase 1 are now being used as a basis from which to explore how creativity functions in the collaborative networks of three of our participants. By mapping out interdisciplinary research projects of different sizes and scales and looking at the relationships that sustain them, we can examine how interdisciplinary collaboration can enable creativity, and how universities and other institutions can help to stimulate researchers' creativity.
