Understanding, attitude and environment

Purpose – This paper is written to add to current knowledge of the views of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) discipline early career researchers (ECRs) about creativity. It aims to explore their understandings of and attitudes towards creativity, as well as their perceptions of which environmental factors facilitate creative research. By discussing the findings in the context of earlier work, the paper seeks to challenge developers to re‐examine current practice in developing creativity by suggesting a broader and deeper approach than is currently often taken.Design/methodology/approach – The paper reports on a qualitative study which collected data from semi‐structured in‐depth interviews with STEM researchers. A thematic analysis was performed on the data.Findings – This research demonstrates that young researchers have a complex range of perceptions of creativity, and that negative attitudes towards it are common in the STEM environment. Three key environmental facilitators of cr...

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