13. Creative Spaces

I was recently interviewed by a university student exploring how to design and develop "creative spaces" in the realm of sustainability. Essentially such spaces need to stimulate interaction between people with different disciplinary backgrounds and promote collaboration between academia, government and industry. Both the IIIEE in Lund and VEIL in Melbourne are certainly creative spaces, but I can see at least 2 major persistent challenges in Sweden and Australia (and probably other parts of the world too). First, the academic "system" really does not reward or recognise very well the outputs of creative spaces, particularly related to sustainability. Instead, universities are focused along disciplinary lines of work. Second, it seems to me, people are just so busy these days ... this leaves little time for the coffee breaks and spontaneous conversations that are the foundations of creative ideas. All this thinking reminded me of an interesting report entitled "Review of Interdisciplinary Environmental Science Centres of Excellence". This report provides some important insights into how to establish and maintain creative spaces. Check it out!