Creating innovative ideas

This course will take you through the basics of how to rediscover your creativity and generate a wide range of ideas in business and life. It is widely held that we are all born with innate powers of creativity and imagination but that over time, as the result of many societal and interpersonal structures we can lose our basic creative insights and confidence. 

In a world where challenges are becoming increasingly complex and ambiguous, our creativity can lead the way to solving problems and finding solutions broadening our perspectives and overcoming our prejudices. 

This course is focused primarily on idea generation but will also provide some insight into their evaluation and implementation. 

Presentation of the course: 

The course will involve illustrated lectures, group discussion, creative exercises and case studies. 

Learning outcomes

The learning outcomes for this course are implicit in the course description and, for those who wish to write papers, in the essay questions which follow it. Students are expected to gain from this series of classroom sessions a greater understanding of the subject, and of the core issues and arguments central to the course.

The learning outcomes for this course specifically are:

1. The basics of creative thinking in terms of mindset and frameworks 
    
2. A structured approach to developing a creative idea 
    
3. A range of creative thinking approaches and stimuli 

Classes

1. Creativity Foundations

This session covers the foundations to creativity and establishes some of the ground rules around how it is characterised within humans and what behaviours can be adopted to enable a wider sense of how to create appropriate responses to problems 

2. The Creative Process

This session covers the common steps that we can take to stimulate the genesis of an idea, critiquing it to test its robustness through to delivering the idea in reality into an appropriate context 

3. Design Thinking

This session covers a more standardised and common accepted way of structuring the development of an idea with organisations going from user interaction at the outset through to idea iteration once delivered 

4. Approaches to Creative Thinking

This session looks at a range of ways in which creative thinking can be stimulated with a more detailed review of a number of common methods used to extend the scope of thought and to build on initial idea streams 

5. Bringing an Idea to Life

This session looks at ways in which we can choose which ideas are ready for implementation and at some of the issues that surround the acceptance of new concepts within specific or general populations 

Further details on essay topics as well as reading and web resources will be added to the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE), which enrolled students can access early next month.

Typical week: Monday to Friday

For each week of study you select a morning (Am) and an afternoon (Pm) course, each course has five sessions, one each day Monday to Friday. The maximum class size is 25 students. Your weekly courses are complemented by a series of two daily plenary lectures, exploring new ideas in a wide range of disciplines. To add to the learning experience, we are also planning additional evening talks and events.

Evaluation and Academic Credit 

If you are seeking to enhance your own study experience, or earn academic credit from your Cambridge Summer Programme studies at your home institution, you can submit written work for assessment for one or more of your courses. 

Essay questions are set and assessed against the University of Cambridge standard by your Course Director, a list of essay questions can be found in the Course Materials. Essays are submitted two weeks after the end of each course, so those studying for multiple weeks need to plan their time accordingly. There is an evaluation fee of £65 per essay.

For more information about writing essays see Evaluation and Academic Credit.

Certificate of attendance

A certificate of attendance will be sent to you electronically within a week of your courses finishing.