Catalyst
More and more, universities are encouraging – requiring, even – that academics produce more innovative and multi-disciplinary research proposals. Yet there are so many demands on their time and resources; it can be difficult for busy academics to find practical ways to develop the skill set necessary to solicit and develop more innovative proposals.
The Catalyst Innovation Programme is designed to address the needs of academics, PhD students at Centres for Doctoral Training (CDTs), and research managers who’d like to sharpen their creative thinking and facilitation skills.
Based on Knowinnovation’s experience leading Sandpits, Ideas Labs and other academic innovation workshops, the Catalyst Programme covers the fundamentals of Creative Problem Solving (CPS) and highlights how to facilitate specific tools and techniques that help to generate more novel ideas and evaluate them more productively.
A short online course helps to prepare participants for the Catalyst workshop, an intensive 2-day programme that covers fundamental concepts of creative thinking and focuses on the key process and tools to support innovative output. Participants get to practice facilitating activities that can be incorporated into their own innovation process, or just used to make their day-to-day meetings more productive. This includes sample facilitation guides and agendas for shorter meetings to get the creative outcomes that are in a short period of time.
