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MATERIAL MATTERS

The critical role of creativity in research Katherine L. Van Aken

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s a senior doctoral student, I often motivate our research group in weekly meetings by bringing up important events, seminars, lab reminders, and anything that is worthy of discussion. A few months ago, I posed this question to our group (~30 researchers): “Does anyone have any crazy, out-of-the-box suggestions for how we can use this material?” Unfortunately, my question was answered with blank stares, a few confused looks, and a wall of silence. While we eventually had a discussion along those lines, it was clear that “outof-the-box” thinking was not something that came naturally to us. But this unfortunate situation got me thinking about research today and where creativity and innovation fit into our research process. By most definitions, creativity and innovation—while used interchangeably in many disciplines—are two different things. Creativity is defined as coming up with something original or unusual. Motivated by curiosity on top of a vast knowledge base, creativity allows one to shake up the normal way of thinking and come up with new solutions to a problem. Innovation, on the other hand, is creating something new that has obvious value to others. While we may have our own way of separating the two ideas in the world around us, I would posit that there is a very interesting space where both concepts can coexist and even complement each other: a scientific research laboratory. At first, this might sound ridiculous. Aren’t the creative process and the scientific process entirely different? Isn’t innovation reserved for industry and product development? Perhaps, but, in fact, scientific research is a field where there are no rules, no standards, and no direct expectations of an outcome. Fundamental

research is meant to discover the unknown and solve problems that don’t yet have solutions. It often doesn’t go as planned and leads to solutions and problems that were not part of the original question. In the modern world, the problems that science attempts to solve are also extremely complex, leading to more and more interdisciplinary fields and collaborations. For example, Materials Science is a naturally interdiscipli-nary field consisting of chemistry, biology, physics, math, and many engineering components. The nature of a materials science discipline is creative in itself, acknowledging the fact that problems such as self-healing polymers and energy storage cannot be solved with any one strict science discipline alone. These complex problems require complex solutions from scientists who can creatively combine their multiple fields of knowledge. But how does innovation fit into a research laboratory? In many labs, it does not. Scientists who have run tests and analyzed results the same way for years are not likely to innovate. In fact, many researchers are moving too fast through what they know without considering what they don’t know. They don’t take a step back to ask if there is another way to get to the solution. Whi