{"id":51327,"date":"2020-03-09T13:12:42","date_gmt":"2020-03-09T20:12:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/world.edu\/?p=51327"},"modified":"2020-03-09T13:12:42","modified_gmt":"2020-03-09T20:12:42","slug":"research-as-creative-practice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/world.edu\/research-as-creative-practice\/","title":{"rendered":"Research as creative practice"},"content":{"rendered":"

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My starting point \u2013 Research is a creative process.<\/p>\n

The connection between research and creativity is embodied in some disciplines. C. Wright Mills for instance famously talked about the necessity of the \u2018sociological imagination\u2019 \u2013 understanding how larger unseen social relations are embedded in and frame everyday events, conversations, processes and relations.<\/p>\n

But perhaps the equation of research and creativity is more convincing to non-social scientists if we look at common understandings of creativity. The recent\u00a0Durham Commission on Creativity and Education\u00a0<\/a>in England offered these definitions:<\/p>\n

Creativity:\u00a0<\/strong>The capacity to imagine, conceive, express, or make something that was not there before.<\/p>\n

Creative thinking:\u00a0<\/strong>A process through which knowledge, intuition and skills are applied to imagine, express or make something novel or individual in its contexts. Creative thinking is present in all areas of life. It may appear spontaneous, but it can be underpinned by perseverance, experimentation, critical thinking and collaboration.<\/p>\n

These two are not just for\/by artists. They apply to research, to what we researchers do, right?<\/p>\n

Let me explain. We generally accept that research is about making a contribution to knowledge. If this is so then research is, by definition, making something that was not there before. Perhaps confirmation studies are an exception to this rule, but certainly doctoral research is almost always geared to the production of something \u201cnovel or individual in its context\u201d.<\/p>\n

Bear with me here. There is a point to this. If research is a creative practice, I\u2019m curious about how creativity is being supported and fostered across disciplines and institutions.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m situated in the UK where there are mandatory courses for social science and science doctoral researchers. I\u2019ll just talk about my field of social science here, but I think the point is true for scientists too. \u00a0The required courses are intended to help the next generation of social scientists to understand research designs and underpinning philosophy, and to acquire a basic \u201ctoolkit\u201d of quant and qual approaches. Well and good, that\u2019s perfectly admirable and understandable \u2013 and if I was a policy maker I\u2019d want to do that too.<\/p>\n

But I\u2019d also recognise the problems. This training \u00a0is often a \u201cone-best\u201d model. It is also time-limited, a module, a workshop. What can be covered is thus also limited. And generally what\u2019s on offer doesn\u2019t cover nearly the range of approaches and situations that social science doctoral researchers encounter.\u00a0PhDers often have do a lot of additional work on traditions and approaches that are barely mentioned in the mandatory courses.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s also at issue,and more to the point, is the kind of implicit messages \u2013 the hidden curriculum \u2013 that goes along with the courses. The emphasis tends to be on technique \u2013 follow the yellow brick road of set processes \u2013 and on a \u201ccanon\u201d of research literature. Fix the design first, specify outcomes. Design the impact. All very linear and logical. Walk this way. Talk this way.<\/p>\n

But one of the things not covered at all, or as well, \u00a0in this kind of \u201ctraining\u201d are processes that are integral to creativity and creative research thinking.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been wondering how prioritising research as a creative\u00a0 practice might change the ways in which we organise the \u201ctraining\u201d we offer to doctoral researchers. If creative thinking involves for example<\/p>\n