Understanding influences on engineering creativity and innovation: a biographical study of 12 outstanding engineering designers and innovators

Biographical information on 12 outstanding engineering designers and innovators is analyzed to identify the common, likely influences on their remarkable success. A model is proposed to explain how these influences interact and develop the knowledge and outcomes necessary for design creativity and innovation: individuals interact with their environment, which provides opportunity, with which they utilize their attitude, interest, and knowledge to act and learn, thereby developing new knowledge and outcomes to attain goals, in the process obtaining internal (from within) and external (from environment) remunerations leading to modification of their interest, attitude, resources, and knowledge for further action and learning. Several common influences are identified: diverse interest and knowledge; hard work; self-belief and drive to solve problems and achieve goals; domain and process knowledge; environment, especially early encouragement; and curiosity- and problem-driven learning. A major implication of the findings is that education into design creativity should support both curiosity- and problem-driven learning of both process knowledge and domain knowledge, for both generation and evaluation of design issues and proposals, ensuring that students get a first-hand taste of the internal remunerations associated with the act of self-driven knowledge creation, while realizing the importance of these various forms of knowledge in complex, creative engineering design and innovation.