Creativity in higher education is embedded in the wicked problem of how we prepare and sustain learners for a lifetime of uncertainty, change, challenge and emergent or self-created opportunity and they will need not only their intellectual ability, practical skills and will to survive and prosper, but also their imaginations and practical creativity. The work we have done to support the development of students’ creative potential is in the context of three propositions.

for the sake of the economy!

‘Work in the modern British economy will increasingly involve creativity and innovation as a mass and everyday activity, applied not just to leading edge high-tech and cultural industries, but to retailing and services, manufacturing and sales. Britain will need an education system that encourages widespread development of generic skills of creativity which include: idea generation; creative teamwork, opportunity sensing; pitching and auditioning; giving criticism and responding to it; mobilising people and resources around ideas to make them real…’ *

for the sake of society!

‘Pupils who are creative will be prepared for a rapidly changing world where they may have to adapt to several careers in a lifetime. Many employers want people who see connections, have bright ideas, are innovative communicate and work well with others and are able to solve problems. In other words they need creative people….Creative pupils lead richer lives and, in the longer term, make a valuable contribution to society’ *

for personal wellbeing

‘Even though personal creativity may not lead to fame and fortune, it can do something that from the individual’s point of view is even more important: make day-to-day experiences more vivid, more enjoyable, more rewarding. When we live creatively, boredom is banished and every moment holds the promise of fresh discovery. Whether or not these discoveries enrich the world beyond our personal lives, living creatively links us with the process of evolution’ (Csikszentmihalyi 1996:344).

SCEPTrE is a member of the Creative Interventions project led by University of the Arts which is exploring how work-related learning in the public and third sectors encountered during a creative arts higher education, is valued and fostered by students, tutors and employers

* Nurturing Creativity in Young People: A report to Government to inform future policy (Department for Culture, Media and Sport, DCMS 2006).