Creative Skills for Researchers

Semester

Semester 2, 2024-2025

Type of course

Theory-oriented Workshops

Date

April 7 and April 8, 2025

Location

Utrecht University

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Duration

2 days

Maximum number of participants

24

ECTS

1 EC will be appointed for participation in the complete course

Staff

Matthijs Baas (UvA) and Eric Rietzschel (RUG)

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. More importantly, it provides you with a creative toolbox for researchers, gives you hands-on experience with some evidence-based creativity techniques, and enables you to work on a personal creative challenge. 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. During these two days, you will get ample opportunity to explore and apply theories/models on these different levels to your own creative challenge.

 

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 think of a creative challenge or obstacle that you face or have faced in your academic career.