Creating Innovators

Creating Innovators is a research project which builds and tests theory about the development and deployment of ‘innovative career capabilities’ in professionals working in the key sectors of science & technology, and the creative industries. The theory will then be used to inform curriculum development in university and professional education programs.

The Creating Innovators project is hosted by the Creative Workforce Program of the ARC Centre of Excellence in Creative Industries and Innovation, and is also supported financially by a QUT Vice-Chancellor's Fellowship.

Project Aims

The Creating Innovators research project aims to investigate how higher and vocational education can drive Australia’s national innovation agenda through the development of innovative career capabilities in their students.

Within the overarching aim just described, the research has the following specific objectives:

1. To build and test a theory regarding the development of individual capabilities that lead to the generation and implementation of innovative ideas, which have the following hallmarks: (i) successful implementation (ii) valuable (iii) creative (Amabile et al, 1996)

2. To identify which of these individual capabilities represent opportunities for inclusion in higher and professional education programs, and to make suggestions regarding how this inclusion can best be achieved.

Project Phases

Creating Innovators is a three year project, comprising three phases of research.It commenced in April 2009. The three phases are:

Phase 1: Theory building using in-depth interviews and an analytical induction approach

Phase 2: Theory validation using self-report surveys and a large scale quantitative approach

Phase 3: Innovation capabilities education and training program gap analysis

The initial phase of research is now underway. This phase involves in-depth interviews with outstanding Australian early-to-mid career innovators. These interviews will explore some of the formative individual, contextual, and social factors which have been influential in the innovators' careers to date.

For more information contact VC Fellow, Dr Ruth Bridgstock: r.bridgstock@qut.edu.au, +61 7 3138 8587.