Creativity in Research
Cultivate Clarity, Be Innovative, and Make Progress in your Research Journey

Provides concrete guidance, grounded in scientific literature, for researchers to build creative confidence in their work.

Nicola Ulibarri (Author), Amanda E. Cravens (Author), Anja Svetina Nabergoj (Author), Sebastian Kernbach (Author), Adam Royalty (Author)

9781108484220, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 1 August 2019

328 pages, 21 b/w illus. 6 tables
23.4 x 15.6 x 2 cm, 0.62 kg

'Creativity in Research is a resource I'll share with all my students and colleagues. It's incredibly useful for all of us.' Pamela Matson, Goldman Professor, Stanford University, California

Creativity is at the heart of successful research, yet researchers are rarely taught how to manage their creative process, and modern academic life is not structured to optimize creativity. Creativity in Research provides concrete guidance on developing creativity for anyone doing or mentoring research. Based on a curriculum developed at Stanford University's Hasso Plattner Institute of Design, this book presents key abilities that underlie creative research practice through a combination of scientific literature on creative confidence, experiential exercises, and guided reflection. By focusing attention on how research happens as well as its outputs, researchers increase their ability to address research challenges and produce the outputs they care about. Simultaneously, they may also transform their emotional relationship with their work, replacing stress and a harsh inner critic with a more open and emotionally empowered attitude.

1. The creativity at the heart of your research
Part I. Develop Your Creative Abilities: 2. Mind your process and be intentional
3. Use emotions to diagnose problems and move forward
4. Solve the right problem
5. Iterate and experiment
Part II. Cultivate Conditions that Support Creativity: 6. Choose your language and stories
7. Manage your energy
8. Make your research a team sport
Part III. Bring the Abilities into Your Office or Lab: 9. Integrate the creative abilities, part 1
10. Integrate the creative abilities, part 2
11. 30-day creativity-in-research program for individuals or groups
12. Mentoring creativity
13. Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Management of specific areas [KJMV], Cognition & cognitive psychology [JMR], Experimental psychology [JML], Occupational & industrial psychology [JMJ], Research methods: general [GPS]