Supervising for creativity in research

Abstract

This paper explores creativity in research and how to facilitate PhD student’s creativity in their research by supervision. It draws on views of PhD students and supervisors collected by semi-structured interviews as well as on a short literature review. In total nine interviews have been carried out of which five were with PhD students and four with supervisors. Creativity in research is often referred to as producing research that is novel in the sense that the conclusions are new, and not repeating previous findings, or that new theoretical approaches or methods are applied. In other words, creativity in research equals new ideas. Basic preconditions for creativity to happen is to build a good overview of the knowledge in the relevant research fields as well as keeping an open mind and not being result driven too soon in the PhD work. Furthermore, creativity can manifest itself differently depending on the research field or discipline; what is considered creative in one field or discipline may not be so in another. The paper concludes that there has to be a strive for freedom and independence in the PhD work, but at the same time PhD students need guidance on how to build knowledge within a field as well as how to to make use of that knowledge and being creative in their research, especially at early stages of the work. The paper presents some ideas on how supervisors can facilitate PhD student’s creativity in research.