This book defines innovation as both a problem and a problem-solving process. It allows readers to approach innovation as a straight-forward problem solving process, and teaches them the paired constraint process to solve specific innovation problems. The authors have used their experience working in creative industries, combined with their academic perspective to create a formal, teachable tool for solving innovation problems. This consists of a formal structure (the problem space), a functional strategy(the paired constraints) and process. (solution by substitution). This book provides a practice section, allowing anyone interested in solving the problem of innovation to learn and develop their skills.

How do universities tackle wicked sustainability challenges faced by society? The Wicked Learning Workbook is a toolkit for setting up and running an interdisciplinary master-level course in the context of real-world problems such as food waste and loss. The book offers a new pedagogical approach that we call 'wicked' because it is unorthodox, ambitious, and tackles complex problems that won’t go away. The pedagogy is also international at the course level rather than the conventional exchange semester, enabling institutions to embed international approaches to their core teaching. The Wicked Learning Workbook speaks directly to academics who are looking for solutions that provide stimuli for research and teaching while giving students an innovative, international learning experience. The approach develops student understanding of the UN Sustainable Development Goals as broad-scale societal issues which are difficult, if not impossible, to ‘solve’. An important outcome of this approach is the laboratory-style classroom that creates opportunities for faculty, students and companies to co-create solutions that are immediately implementable. The resulting methodology is based on industry–university collaboration (such as IKEA and Nestlé). The methodology is of interest to corporate leaders pursuing sustainability goals and business transformation. Achieving sustainability requires cross-boundary, cross-disciplinary, experimental approaches that allow for scalability. Wicked problems can only be tackled with wicked solution approaches.

All creative work operates under constraints. Yet, despite an overall increase in attention over the past decade, the matter of constraints has received much less attention than has creativity, in general. This book represents an effort by the editors to integrate diverse perspectives on constraints in creativity from 22 researchers, who aim to define constraints, uncover their structure, delineate the conditions under which they facilitate or inhibit creativity, and outline how an understanding of the role of constraints in creative thinking can inform our understanding of the nature of creativity itself. Constraints in Creativity provides educators, managers, creativity researchers, and anyone looking to improve their own creative skills with theoretical and practical insights into the role of constraints in the creative process. Contributors are: Don Ambrose, John Baer, Paul Joseph Barnett, Michael Mose Biskjaer, Nathalie Bonnardel, Anthony Chemero, Peter Dalsgaard, Vlad Glăveanu, Armand Hatchuel, James C. Kaufman, Agnès Lellouche-Gounon, Pascal Le Masson, Kelsey E. Medeiros, Roni Reiter-Palmon, Eric Rietzschel, Wendy Ross, Diana Rus, Dean Keith Simonton, Robert J. Sternberg, Patricia D. Stokes, Catrinel Tromp and Benoit Weil.

In this exciting new contribution to the study of creativity, psychologist, artist, and writer Dr. Patricia Stokes delves into the minds of famous creative artists and discovers the surprising source leading to their creative breakthroughs. From Picasso to Stravinsky, Kundera and Chanel to Frank Lloyd Wright, it is not boundary-less creative freedom that inspires new ideas, but self-imposed, well-considered constraints. Monet forced himself to repeatedly paint the way light broke on, between, and around his subjects, contrasting color instead of light and dark, and softening edges in the process. His constraints catapulted the art world from representational to impressionist art. Whatever your creative field--be you an artist, educator, or psychologist who studies creativity and problem solving--Stokes shows you how to think clearly about your creative development and design the vital constraints that will take you to breakthrough.

The authors connect concepts, definitions and data regarding the informal economy, innovation, and intellectual property in order to establish a framework for further qualitative and quantitative research and the improvement of public policies in respect of these issues.

Solving non-routine problems is a key competence in a world full of changes, uncertainty and surprise where we strive to achieve so many ambitious goals. But the world is also full of solutions because of the extraordinary competences of humans who search for and find them.