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Creative Skills for Researchers

Semester

Semester 2, 2023-2024

Type of course

Methodological and Practical Courses

Date

May 27 and May 28, 2024

Location

Utrecht University

Duration

2 days

Maximum number of participants

24

ECTS

1 EC will be appointed for participation in the complete course

Staff

Matthijs Baas (UvA), Eric Rietzschel (RUG), Diana Rus (RUG)

Content, learning goals, preparation

Doing research is a creative endeavor. At all stages of the research process – from problem formulation, hypothesis generation, and construct operationalization, to implementing research, writing papers and countering nasty reviews – you have to come up with ideas and find ways to develop, sell, and implement them. This means that sharpening your creative skills is essential to your success in academia. Moreover, research relies on teamwork that is embedded in an organizational context that may both help and hinder creativity. This also means that sparkling science requires the management of creative teamwork and organizational constraints. 

To help you develop your creative skills and management of creative (team)work, this workshop gives you some theoretical background in how the creative process works at the individual, team and organizational level, provides you with a creative toolbox for researchers, and gives you hands-on experience with some evidence-based creativity techniques. On day 1, we focus on general creativity models and creativity at the individual level; on day 2, we focus on creativity at the team and organizational level.  

After this workshop, you can: 

  1. identify challenges to creativity in academia and connect them to relevant scientific knowledge about creativity at the individual, team, and organizational level of analysis;
  2. develop scientifically informed solutions and interventions for creative challenges in academia; and
  3. apply techniques to foster your own and others’ creative thinking.

In addition, there is room for you to discuss questions, problems, or obstacles you may have encountered during your creative endeavors (e.g., coming up with research questions, creatively solving problems, finding new ways to present a model or study, convincing others of the value of your idea, etc.).

As preparation, you will be asked to read four articles about creativity and think of a creative challenge or obstacle that you face or have faced in your academic career.

Assignment

Think of a creative challenge or obstacle that you face or have faced in your academic career. Please take some time to reflect on this challenge, and write a brief (e.g., 1 page) reflection on it. What happened? Who was involved? To what extent do you have control over your challenge? You do not need to send us your reflection, but please bring it to the workshop. During the workshop, we will work on different challenges that people are willing to share.

Literature

Compulsory:

  1. Amabile, T.M., Conti, R., Coon, H., Lazenby, J., & Herron, M. (1996). Assessing the work environment for creativity. Academy of Management Journal, 39(5), 1154-1184.
  2. Barrett, J. D., Vessey, W. B., Griffith, J. A., Mracek, D., & Mumford, M. D. (2014). Predicting scientific creativity: The role of adversity, collaborations, and work strategies. Creativity Research Journal, 26, 39-52.
  3. Gu, X., Ritter, S. M., Delfmann, L. R., & Dijksterhuis, A. (2022). Stimulating creativity: Examining the effectiveness of four cognitive‐based creativity training techniques. The Journal of Creative Behavior, 56(3), 312-327.
  4. Perry-Smith, J.E., & Mannucci, P.V. (2017). From creativity to innovation: The social network drivers of the four phases of the idea journey. Academy of Management Review, 42(1), 53-79. UNTIL PAGE 65