Four University of Cambridge engineers have shared a national award for their work to teach creativity and practical solution development skills to a global audience.
When learners see that creativity can be learned and strengthened, not simply relied on as a talent, you can almost feel their confidence shift.
One of the lead tutors, engineer Dr Leon Pietschmann
Professor of Design Nathan Crilly and his team won Gold at the Learning Technologies Awards for their Cambridge Advance Online (CAO) course, 'Creativity, Problem Solving and Design Thinking'. The award was for the best use of social and collaborative learning technologies.
Using research from the Department of Engineering, Nathan and his team have developed and delivered the course to help participants become effective problem-solvers through structured creativity. The course is unique in bringing together skills that are usually considered separately, including design thinking, systems thinking and entrepreneurial thinking.
Nathan said: “This award is the perfect way to recognise the whole team’s dedication to developing such an innovative, high-impact course.”
The course focuses on individual and collective cognition, taking learners on a journey through problem framing, idea generation and solution development. Participants have ranged from healthcare professionals and environmentalists to accountants.
He said that their objective was to make Cambridge research on creativity available to the world.
“Learners tell us it makes such a difference to their working practices, often before they’ve even finished the course.”
The course draws on research, conducted by Nathan and his group, into human behaviour in problem-solving. The focus is on how designers, inventors and entrepreneurs think and act, especially how they frame and reframe solutions. Other areas include the impact of implicit assumptions on creative exploration and how users, customers or other stakeholders are considered.
And the course has also taught the team valuable lessons by putting theory into practice.
From developing and delivering the course, Nathan has identified five approaches that can contribute to successful creativity training.
- Support learners' metacognitive reflections. Creative development can be promoted by helping learners to reflect on the different ways of thinking they exhibit, and how that thinking gets stuck.
- Explain the underpinning mechanisms behind creative techniques to avoid a confusing jumble of methods.
- Acknowledge the distinct disciplines that learners bring to the course
- Encourage learners to select the elements that mean most to them.
- Acknowledge the importance of ensuring immediate and ongoing application of the course’s content in the learners’ professional context.
PhD students learn from the teaching experience
Three engineering PhD students have been lead tutors on the course: Devmalya Sarkar, of the Department’s Institute of Manufacturing (IFM); Esdras Paravizo, of the Engineering Design Centre, and Dr Leon Pietschmann, formerly of the IFM.
Leon said: “Teaching this course has reminded me that creativity is not a single skill but a combination of mindset, method and practice.”
He said the course encouraged participants to see creativity as something to learn rather than just being a talent.
“When learners see that creativity can be learned and strengthened, not simply relied on as a talent, you can almost feel their confidence shift.”
Leon added: “The course has reaffirmed the value of prototyping. Prototyping helps teams communicate more clearly, test assumptions early and make informed decisions long before they commit resources. It is practical creativity in its purest form.
“In my day-to-day work, systems thinking creates the conditions for creativity to produce solutions that actually work in the real world.”
Devmalya said that teaching the course had been an enriching experience for his work as an innovation strategist, working in complex, highly-regulated sectors, such as health-tech.
He said: “Early in the course, many describe their problems in broad, familiar terms. By the end, it is encouraging to see them mapping systems, reframing problems, and testing small changes in their own organisations. That pattern is very close to what I have seen in my wider work, when organisations become more deliberate about early-stage innovation.”
Devmalya added: “Underpinning the creative skills of curiosity, reframing and disciplined experimentation is collaborative listening. By considering what colleagues, beneficiaries and other stakeholders say, we can use those insights to shape solutions that address real-world challenges.”
Esdras said that he had been able share insights and examples from his PhD research into Design Creativity with course participants.
“The course has provided an extremely valuable opportunity to bring research concepts to a general audience, focussing on actionable tools and techniques. Interacting in the course prompted me to further refine the way I present my research. It also gave me ideas on how to better use examples that I have implemented in my own academic work.”
He explained that divergent and convergent thinking skills were probably among the most important creative skills, but that persistence and communication skills were also important for successful creative endeavours.
The next six-week, part-time course will run from 2 February to 15 March 2026, with an enrolment deadline of 26 January 2026. CAO courses bring together experts from the University of Cambridge and Cambridge University Press and Cambridge Assessment. The financial success of this course also supports the University, including directly funding related undergraduate activities in the Engineering Department.
