I focus on the human foundations for creative efforts. This means cultivating skills that are needed to create, champion and implement novel ideas, and shape organisations to bring out the best in people.
We can’t afford to rely on the lone innovator going against the grain – for sustainable radical creativity, we need to level the field for a team effort of diverse stakeholders.
On a practical level, this means piloting new forms of research, teaching and development at the Design Factory; exploring how universities can break down silos and act as hubs for co-creation.
Especially in engineering, creativity is very much tied to the possibility to prototype and explore ideas – in radical creativity.
It’s not just the thought that counts but how that thought can be cultivated further.
Distinguishing between incremental improvements and ground-breaking innovations is easy in hindsight, but predicting the novelty and impact of ideas before-the-fact is not.
The “radicalness” in radical creativity comes from openly discussing and questioning assumptions, bringing in and appreciating diverse experiences, and giving breathing and testing room even for crazy ideas. As a result, we increase the odds of finding and being able to pull off truly novel solutions.
We need to make it easy to say yes to the first steps of exploring fragile new ideas and to showcase the variety of forms that creativity comes in to encourage new ideas.
Let’s experiment with new ways of empowering students and staff to make a difference in what they see as meaningful, while at the same time building a sum greater than its parts.
The most interesting thoughts, initiatives and projects on some level all come back to serendipitous encounters with open-minded people. Curiosity breeds creativity.
Tua Björklund
Assistant Professor, Design Factory
School of Engineering
Radical creativity
We enable experimental activities that challenge the status quo.
- Published:
- Updated:
Read more news
New origami packaging technology creates sustainable and eye-catching alternatives to conventional packing materials
Origami packaging enables completely new properties for cartonboard, making it an excellent alternative to, for example, plastic and expanded polystyrene in packaging. The aesthetics of the material have also garnered interest from designers.
Quantum physics professor searches for exotic qubit alternatives with new European funding
Aalto University physics professor Jose Lado will use this funding to engineer a new type of topological quantum material that could have applications for quantum bit, or “qubit,” development for noise-resilient topological quantum computation.
Talvikki Hovatta wants to solve a mystery that has plagued astronomers for decades
A new receiver at the Metsähovi Radio Observatory and ERC funding from the European Research Council will enable research into the composition of relativistic jets launched by supermassive black holes