Creative Universities for Preparing the Creative Class in the 21st Century

Abstract

This paper addresses the question whether universities today are creative enough to construct new bodies of state-of-the-art knowledge to teach to their students and to pioneer innovative inventions to solve the economic, social, and ecological problems of the fast changing world. Research funding has fueled research activities in campus to foster invention and facilitate the creative process with the expectation that the funding can generate economic benefits for the country. Instead, it yields a very small rate of return as the research may generate few technological innovations or economic payoff. When some university research receives criticism as it failed to generate practical payoff in terms of meeting the needs of industry and the public, some universities have proved themselves to be successful to become the world’s innovative power house. Those successful universities with their creative leadership have prepared their graduates to be innovation ready to enter the creative class of the workforce. To cultivate creativity in this fast changing world, this paper proposes five dimensions for universities to focus on: optimizing the interaction of individual, domain and field; flowing the spirit of creativity to the whole university; using technology and activating entrepreneurship, and moving from second- to third-generation creativity. Third generation creativity comprises the social-ecological worldview, ethics and interdisciplinary approach, capability approach, and cosmopolitanism and promoting English as a Lingua Franca for universities residing in non-English speaking countries.

Keywords: creativity, higher education, creative class