Impact of Creativity in Education, Organisations, and Society

On the 6th of December, the Webster Center for Creativity and Innovation (WCCI), Webster University Geneva, and Centre for the Science of Learning and Technology (SLATE), University of Bergen, co-organised the International Symposium The Real-World Impact of Creativity in Education, Organisations, and Society at Webster Geneva Campus.

This event is the third edition of a long-term collaboration between the WCCI and SLATE, including a first symposium on creativity, learning and technology in 2017 (Geneva) and a second one on interdisciplinarity collaboration in 2018 (Bergen).

Creativity is undeniably one of the buzzwords of the 21stcentury. It gained a prominent role in educational policy, business strategy, marketing campaigns, recruitment plans, political activism and beyond. And yet the question remains of what exactly we mean by creativity in all these contexts. More than this, what is the real-world impact of our definitions, theories, and practices of creativity in the life of students and teachers, in organisations, and in society at large? If creativity is the ‘force for good’ we imagine it to be, what can we learn from its application in different key domains and areas of our collective life?

This international symposium explored the real-world impact of creativity in education, organisations and society with a focus on a) how creativity is understood and practiced in these different contexts; b) what we can learn about the creative process from considering these domains; and c) how we can assess and critically reflect on the role and value of creativity in the 21stcentury. We debated these themes with the help of international experts, both academics and practitioners, through keynotes, paper presentations, and panel discussions. The keynote talks were offered by Maciej Karwowski (University of Wroclaw, Poland), Ingunn Johanne Ness (University of Bergen, Norway( and Silas Harrebye (Roskilde University, Denmark).

The program, paper abstracts and author bios can be found here.

The symposium was free of charge and open to the general public. It was attended by about 70 people coming in throughout the day and live streamed on the Facebook page of the Webster Center for Creativity and Innovation.

The recordings can also be found on the Facebook page of the Webster Center for Creativity and Innovation.

We look forward to the fourth edition of this symposium, on the topic of creativity and sustainability, in Bergen in December 2020!