Research

We undertake a number of research projects. These include:

Facilitating Creativity in UK Higher Education

This research project, commissioned by the Higher Education Academy in collaboration with NESTA, explored the views of National Teaching Fellows (NTFs) about creativity, teaching and learning in UK Higher Education.

It was a quantitative and qualitative investigation involving three phases of data collection:

• initial qualitative and quantitative pilot work
• main survey data collection
• in-depth interviews.

The main survey data collection was followed by a series of 21 in-depth interviews to follow-up particularly interesting findings. We are extremely grateful to all National Teaching Fellows for their co-operation in this research.

This project builds on a series of related investigations undertaken by staff of The Creativity Centre including:

• research into the views of 1028 UK teachers and further education lecturers about creativity, teaching and learning, funded by the ESRC
• a follow-up study on teachers' views on creativity and cognitive styles, funded by Leeds Metropolitan University
• a comparative investigation of creative and effective teaching in HE in Leeds and Lisbon, funded by The British Council
• a faculty-wide survey of views on creativity, teaching and learning at Leeds Metropolitan University, funded by the Enterprise in Higher Education Initiative.

B-There: Overcoming Employment Barriers

This is a two-year research and development project, funded by the European Social Fund, under the Equal Community Initiative Programme. Its aim is to help redress inequalities in the labour market by focusing on the match/mismatch in attitudes, perceptions and beliefs amongst people from the African, African-Caribbean, Bangladeshi and Pakistani communities in Bradford seeking work or promotion, local employers, and representatives of intermediary organisations. The first year of this project focused on investigating what issues representatives of these three groups identified. This involved a series of semi-structured interviews with 75 representatives.

The research findings informed the preparation of innovative learning toolkits for employers, employees, job seekers and intermediaries. These were piloted in the spring and are available for purchase now.

We are also grateful for the support given by Bradford Equal to our international Creativity & Cultural Diversity conference and to the production of CCET's the internationally-authored book, Creativity & Cultural Diversity, which was also supported by Arts Council England, Yorkshire.

Equal Opportunities across the Workplace

We carried out a survey of Equal Opportunities across the Workplace on behalf of the Learning & Skills Council West Yorkshire (LSCWY). This involved identifying 12 private sector organisations across Yorkshire & Humberside who exhibited best practice in the implementation of their equal opportunities policies and conducting a series of case studies. The findings will be useful for all employers who wish to implement equal opportunities more effectively in their own companies. We are really grateful to all those companies who took part in this research. A PDF version of our research report is available to view online at the LSCWY.

Other research projects

We have conducted a number of other research projects in the area of creativity development and evaluation. To find out more about our research interests and services, please contact us.