Teaching creativity in higher education: a community-based perspective

There is a recognized need to transform higher education in order to train "T-shaped" students, having boundary-crossing and creative competencies. We present here a program carried out at Grenoble University, France, dedicated to the development of creativity competencies. The main dimensions of creativity teaching are described. Creativity teaching also goes along with learning by doing and transdisciplinary projects. We then show how the introduction of creativity in higher education can reach the institutional level and be a change agent for the system as a whole. It is based on the development and animation of a community of practice that produces and shares knowledge about creativity practices in pedagogy. One of the effects of this community is the appropriation by the governance of the creativity subject leading to structural decisions around space and time. Finally, we discuss the limits and fragilities of such a system level change.