Ep. 94 - Guest episode with Dr. David Cropley, Professor of Engineering Innovation and expert in creative problem solving

2024-07-12

Professor of Engineering Innovation and expert in creative problem solving In Episode 94, The Occupational Philosophers chat with Dr David Cropley, a Professor of Engineering Innovation at the University of South Australia. He specialises in helping people and organisations become better, more effective, problem solvers. After serving for four years in the United Kingdom’s Royal Navy, David joined the School of Engineering at the South Australian Institute of Technology (SAIT) in 1990,. Following the establishment of the University in 1991, he completed a PhD in Measurement Systems En...

Professor of Engineering Innovation and expert in creative problem solving

In Episode 94, The Occupational Philosophers chat with Dr David Cropley, a Professor of Engineering Innovation at the University of South Australia. He specialises in helping people and organisations become better, more effective, problem solvers.

After serving for four years in the United Kingdom’s Royal Navy, David joined the School of Engineering at the South Australian Institute of Technology (SAIT) in 1990,. Following the establishment of the University in 1991, he completed a PhD in Measurement Systems Engineering in 1997, and a Graduate Certificate in Higher Education in 2002.

He has taught a variety of courses on engineering, including digital electronics, linear electronics, systems engineering, and engineering design. He teaches creativity and innovation across programs, from gifted education through to management, and his research interests span creativity in education, the assessment of creativity and innovation in organisations, the role of creativity and innovation in terrorism and crime, and the nexus of creative problem-solving and engineering. Most recently, he has been researching the intersection of creativity and artificial intelligence (AI).

David is author/co-author of 10 books including Creativity in Education: A user’s guide for educators, parents and students (Hawker Brownlow, 2022), Core Capabilities for Industry 4.0 – Foundations of the Cyber-Psychology of Engineering (Wbv Media, 2021) and The Psychology of Innovation in Organizations (Cambridge University Press, 2015).

He is also a recognised expert in creative problem solving and innovation, Dr David Cropley was a scientific consultant and on-screen expert for the Australian ABC TV Documentaries Redesign My Brain (2013), Life at 9 (2014) and Redesign My Brain, Series 2 (2015). For more than 25 years, he has helped schools and organisations in Australia, the US, and Europe develop more effective, creative problem solvers.

In this episode, they explore:

The gap between creativity research and application
What is the difference between creativity and innovation
Whether David has built an intergalactic transporter or it’s still just an idea
The different phases of innovation
How personality, motivations, past experience and environment affects our ability to be creative
What ‘Life at 9’ discovered about children’s levels of creativity as they grow
How AI and LLMs will improve opportunities to objectively measure creativity
What assessments provide the most holistic measure of creativity in individuals
What is ‘malevolent creativity’?
How we can cultivate creativity as a habit
What three things do we need to provide teams to unleash their creativity?
Why creativity is like spinach….and why we need to start eating more of it!