Skills for innovation
There are many different skills and attitudes that underpin innovation. They encompass self awareness, self belief, the confidence to challenge received wisdom, a spirit of curiosity and enquiry, and the resourcefulness and resilience needed to make ideas happen.
We’re interested in investigating how to nurture these skills in young people. For example, what interventions are most effective and why, and what conditions and environments are influential in helping to foster them?
We also want to understand how to measure the development of these skills in young people, so we have commissioned a tool to try and do this.
Our recent work has been focussed on how to develop two particular skills: risk-taking and STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) skills. Risk-taking is fundamental to innovation, but to date, few activities have been piloted to cultivate this. Learning about science helps young people to develop research, problem-solving and enquiry skills – competencies crucial for developing new ideas.
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STEM skills
View our work related to STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) skills.
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Risk-taking
View our work on risk-taking.
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Measuring innovation skills
View our work on measuring innovation skills.