-Guidelines, Methods, Evaluation, Selection Criteria-

General Ideas

• Solicitation criteria must be inclusive of current creativity research across disciplines.
  • By including creativity in the solicitation it allows reviewers to include creativity in their analysis.
• Selection of empathetic reviewers that are aware of research methods that form part of the proposal.
  • Applicants should also be able to suggest a list of recommended reviewers.
• Applicants should be able to flag their projects as "high risk" without fear of prejudice.
  • Risk or opportunity?
• Proposals should be descriptive rather than prescriptive, and must include reflection and evaluation.
  • Guidelines should allow for interim reviews and/or support "seed funding".
• The goals for a project should be allowed to change and deliverables may need to be reviewed.
  • Discovery in the process may be documented and presented as deliverable.
• Practice-based research: supporting makers.
  • Research as synthesis together with analysis.
  • Make links with the type of research done in engineering?
• Supporting makers.
  • Bringing people from different disciplines to MAKE things.

General Guidelines

• Guidelines should be given about how to document and present interim discoveries, insights or emergent activity.
• Guidelines should be provided to allow grantees to better understand the impact of their research and how to present this.

Applications should have mechanisms in place to recognise change and have sufficient flexibility to respond to change.

Review Criteria

• Will this research debunk the mysticism that surrounds creativity?
• Does this research help our understanding of the role of creativity in work?
• Does the research embrace technology and innovation?
• Does the research use creativity to broaden education in STEM disciplines?
• Does the research work at the interface of STEM and creativity.

Create a new kind of proposal called a ?design proposal? as an alternative kind of funding to the traditional ?research proposal?

1) Foucsed on a need area rather than a specific hypothesis/result
can be based on social/economic need (transportation, alternative energy, health?.)
?but needs to be decoupled from immediate cost/benefit analysis and from specific solution paths

2) Combining different perspectives (multi-disciplinary in a way that is focused on the topic)
Should require explicit inclusion of ?outsider? perspectives
e.g., if it is in art-centered project, need technologists
e.g., if it is a technical design project (like MIT?s cars) need artists

3) Initial proposal is seed for more extensive project
Leverage NSF support to get industry involvement
Initial funding is large/long enough to allow building up sufficient resources to get to a first round prototype to see what directions are worth following further

4) Educational activity is a key part of the project
Done with substantial student involvement
One major benefit for the money is that it creates an environment for givng design thinking experience to a wide swath of students (different fields), as a value independent of the explicit results that emerge
Create ties to other forms of student funding (fellowships, research associated with project aspects)

5) Selection criteria based on assessment of human/institutional capacities to learn by doing as the project evolves, rather than by being able to anticipate the results.

Rethinking STEM

Science, creativity, engineering and new technology = SCENT

"Creativity is the new math"

Written on a Mac: Designed by Apple in California. Assembled in China.