Promoting creativity and innovation in engineering education.

Why is creativity important to engineering, and engineering education? The value that creativity and innovation offer lies in their ability to facilitate the development of novel and effective technological solutions to problems stimulated by change. There is, however, a disconnect between creativity, innovation and engineering. Educational programs focus excessively on narrow and deep technical specifications, with little or no room in the curriculum for developing the ability to think and act creatively. Unless this disconnect is addressed through holistic changes to engineering education, we risk producing engineers who are ill-equipped to tackle the problems sparked by increasingly rapid change in society.