Towards creativity stimulating design intervention for multidisciplinary innovation teams

The aim of our research is to stimulate cross disciplinary design collaboration to improve innovation processes in product and service design domain. We focus on the intersection of biotechnology and design as this field poses great challenges and opportunities for innovation, and it has received little attention in light of technological advancements of digital goods over the past decades. Experimental studies in the area expose challenging interactions, rising from lack of common vocabulary and preconceptions. Organisational management studies suggest that creativity is a prerequisite for innovation in group processes. As such, we are interested in enhancing collective creativity. Numerous studies investigate external creativity triggers, however only on individual level. Our review suggests that external triggers can be effective when the task is problem solving or styling, but ambiguous goals like innovation require stimulation of intrinsic triggers, such as group incidental learning and tacit knowledge. To explain this, we propose a hypothetical innovation approach, that draws attention to cognitive stimulation methods leading to creativity in multidisciplinary teams

Generative boundary objects as integral parts of framing in design and bioscience collaborations

Collaborations between design engineers and bioscientists offer novel opportunities that could help solving some of the biggest challenges organisations and societies are facing. Combining design and bioscience has the potential to create responsible and desirable products/services, however such ventures come with challenges rising from boundaries between practices. This research explores boundary objects as sources of framing in multidisciplinary collaborations. The results are based on a descriptive study with synthetic biologists and design engineers working on an innovation-driven task

The ideation compass: supporting interdisciplinary creative dialogues with real time visualization

This study presents the potential of live topic visualization in supporting creative dialogs during remote idea generation. We developed a novel Creativity Support Tool (CST) to explore the effects of the live topic visualization. The tool emphasizes the interdisciplinary knowledge background of participants. Using Natural Language Processing (NLP) and topic modeling, the tool provides users with a live visual mapping of the domains and topics being orally discussed. To understand the tool’s user perceived effects, we conducted evaluation sessions and interviews with participants (N = 10) from two different disciplinary backgrounds: design and bioscience. The findings show that live visualization of domains and topics supported self-reflection during individual and collaborative creativity and encouraged a balanced discussion, which can mitigate discipline-based fixation in ideation

Supporting collaborative biodesign ideation with contextualised knowledge from bioscience

The objective of this work is to support co-creation of novel ideas in biodesign during fast-paced and facilitated workshops. We created a card-based tool which simultaneously provides knowledge on both ‘science’ and ‘context’. The tool was used to trigger and inspire collaborative ideation in two biodesign workshops in which participants from scientific and design backgrounds produced ideas for healthcare-related innovations. To understand the perception of the tool and the mechanism of scientific knowledge integration in ideation, we conducted post-workshop interviews with 10 participants. Our qualitative analysis shows that the exposure to contextualised scientific knowledge provided by the tool enabled participants to generate ideas that cover a wide spectrum from the micro-scale of bioscience to the macro-scale of socio-political contexts, and thus supported the acceleration of ideation in biodesign workshops

Наука України: цифри, факти, проблеми

У статті розглянуто результати предметно-орієнтованого пошуку й аналізу інформації про стан української академічної науки, її головні проблеми, вирішення яких дозволить підвищити ефективність науково-технічної та інноваційної діяльності в країні. Для більшої наочності основні показники української науки наведено в динаміці на тлі аналогічних показників світової науки. Матеріал ґрунтується на власних розробках відділу економічних досліджень Інституту електрозварювання ім. Є.О. Патона НАН України, а також на публікаціях у вітчизняних і зарубіжних засобах масової інформації, Інтернеті та на офіційних документах (або їх проектах) за тематикою дослідження

Personality and local brain structure: Their shared genetic basis and reproducibility

Local cortical architecture is highly heritable and distinct genes are associated with specific cortical regions. Total surface area has been shown to be genetically correlated with complex cognitive capacities, suggesting cortical brain structure is a viable endophenotype linking genes to behavior. However, to what extend local brain structure has a genetic association with cognitive and emotional functioning is incompletely understood. Here, we study the genetic correlation between personality traits and local cortical structure in a large-scale twin sample (Human Connectome Project, n ​= ​1102, 22-37y) and we evaluated whether observed associations reflect generalizable relationships between personality and local brain structure two independent age-matched samples (Brain Genomics Superstructure Project: n ​= ​925, age ​= ​19-35y, enhanced Nathan Kline Institute dataset: n ​= ​209, age: 19-39y). We found a genetic overlap between personality traits and local cortical structure in 10 of 18 observed phenotypic associations in predominantly frontal cortices. However, we only observed evidence in favor of replication for the negative association between surface area in medial prefrontal cortex and Neuroticism in both replication samples. Quantitative functional decoding indicated this region is implicated in emotional and socio-cognitive functional processes. In sum, our observations suggest that associations between local brain structure and personality are, in part, under genetic control. However, associations are weak and only the relation between frontal surface area and Neuroticism was consistently observed across three independent samples of young adults

Design x Science cards

A deck of cards to support collaborative ideation in multidisciplinary Design and Science projects

The timing of family commitments in the early work career:Work-family trajectories of young adults in Flanders

OBJECTIVE This article examines the diverse ways in which young adults develop both their professional career and family life in the years immediately after they complete their education. Building a career and starting a family often occur simultaneously in this stage of life. By studying the simultaneous developments in these life domains, we can gain a better understanding of this complex interplay. METHODS The data consist of a sample of 1,657 young adults born in 1976 who were interviewed as part of the SONAR survey of Flanders at ages 23, 26, and 29 about their education, their entry into and early years on the labour market, and their family life. Sequence analysis is used to study the timing of union formation and having children among these young adults, as well as how these events are related to their work career. Multinomial regression analysis is applied to help us gain a better understanding of the extent to which these life course patterns are determined by education and economic status at the start of the career. RESULTS The results reveal a set of work-family trajectories which vary in terms of the extent of labour market participation and the type and timing of family formation. Various aspects of the trajectory are found to be determined by different dimensions of an individual’s educational career (duration, level, field of study). Education is more relevant for women than for men, as a man’s trajectory is more likely than a woman’s to be determined by the first job. CONCLUSIONS By using a simultaneous approach which takes into account both family and work, this life course analysis confirms that men have a head start on the labour market, and examines the factors which influence the distinct trajectories of young women and men