Innovative and creative thinking in research

There is nothing more frustrating than coming up with the right answer to the wrong question.”  (Tim Brown, IDEO).

This is one of the most common issues within the innovation process.

To improve on this, it is important to nurture creativity and Design Thinking which has been widely proven to improve performance across different sectors.

However, herein lies another challenge, in that merely using isolated techniques often falls short of expectations and unsuccessful outcomes.

Recently the term ‘Design Culturing’ has been offered as a more precise definition and approach (Julier et al 2019).

Using some case study examples from my own research journey, I hope to stimulate your minds for change.

The aim is to provide some tools to enable you to reflect, explore and apply your creativity, nurturing a design culture within your research and beyond into your chosen profession.

Virtual Researcher Seminar Series

This seminar is part of the Virtual Researcher Seminar Series, running across October.

These short lunch-time seminars are online and are designed to provide general research mentorship to help coach post-doctoral researchers (namely research fellows, research associates and research assistants).

PhD researchers are also welcome to attend.

The first set of seminars will involve four sessions covering:

• General advice and maxims to develop yourself as a researcher,
• How to use good scientific principles from the open science framework,
• The role of innovation and creativity in research, and
• How to get your first funded research project.

These four seminars are short and to the point and will last between 30 minutes and 1 hour.

There will be an opportunity for an open discussion after each talk.