Activities

The Institute for Creativity provides support for University of Galway researchers who are already carrying out excellent work in this area. Important examples of such work include, but are not limited to, the following: 

• Creative arts practices and histories; heritage; applied creative research. 
• Creative approaches to arts and humanities research.
• Creative Industries, creative entrepreneurship. 
• Evolving approaches to creativity, including through creative technologies, Artificial Intelligence, and digital and computational humanities.
• Design, engineering, and design thinking. 
• Creativity for societal impact, inclusion, and/or sustainability (including climate action).
• Creativity and public health, mental health, well-being; creativity and empathy; creativity and neuroscience.
• Creative pedagogies; creativity in education; creativity and assessment. 

The Institute will also aim quickly to expand, combine, and transcend those specialisms. By doing so, it will:

• Lead us towards a new understanding of creativity, including in terms of research, pedagogy, national policy, scientific and business innovation.
• Support research in creativity, broadly conceived, including by
  o    Providing physical space
  o    Mentoring of research applications. 
  o    Management of research projects 
  o    Hosting of PhDs, post-docs, and visiting researchers. 
• Provide space for cross-disciplinary collaborations (rooms, seminars, but also informal gatherings/spaces) 
• Driving research engagement through partnerships, public events, and other activities. 

As a research institute, the Institute for Creativity will house funded research projects, will host seminars and workshops, and will generate new knowledge. But it will also be a living laboratory, a place where the university’s many strands will intersect and overlap – a generative and inspirational space for artists and scholars, students and teachers, academics, and members of the public to come together. 

The Institute will thus discover new synergies; will develop new partnerships within and beyond the College of Arts, Social Sciences, and Celtic Studies; and will take a lead internationally in pushing beyond our current understanding of the role of creativity – not just in the university but in all facets of human activity.