Creative Research Environments : Environmental Factors Affecting Creativity in Agricultural Research in Australia

Abstract

The OECD defines research and development (R&D) as creative work undertaken on a systematic basis in order to increase the stock of knowledge, including knowledge of man, culture and society and the use of this stock of knowledge to devise new applications. This definition of R&D is adopted widely, in Australia and elsewhere. However, the creative essence of R&D is seldom recognised. Creativity is the accepted life-blood of music, literature and the arts but it is rarely associated with science. For instance, the Industry Commission made scant mention of creativity in its 1995 wide ranging report on R&D. None of the seven broad guidelines proposed by the
Commission for R&D policy design covered creativity. Similarly the need for creativity in R&D went unrecognised at a conference in Melbourne in 1996 on Global Agricultural Science Policy for the Twenty-First Century.
Creative Research Environments seeks to fill this gap by examining the nature of creativity, what drives people to be creative and which environmental factors affect creativity. Our work has relevance generally to R&D. However, our particular focus is agricultural R&D, which has a number of distinctive characteristics. For instance, agricultural R&D is conducted principally in and is funded by public sector institutions. Agricultural R&D is conducted predominantly by male scientists, many of whom have been trained in agriculture or a related domain. Agricultural R&D is also geographically dispersed. These and other institutional and cultural features suggest there may be a need to foster creativity more actively in agricultural R&D. Agricultural R&D policies and strategies throughout the 1980s and 1990s have probably accentuated that need.