Funding Opportunities from the National Science Foundation CreativeIT
Program

http://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=501096&org=CISE&from=home
DUE DATE

Full Proposal Deadline Date:  October 13, 2009
I. INTRODUCTION

Creativity, design, and research all contribute new knowledge and artifacts.
The CreativeIT program focuses on the commonality of these three processes
and solicits proposals that bring creative practice and creativity research
to play a role in transformative research in specific contexts of computer
science, cognitive science, information technology, education, engineering
design and science. The program considers design as a type of research in
which the definition of the problem may change in response to the
exploration and development of alternative solutions, leading to creative
solutions and innovation. The program's objective is to bring together
different disciplines associated with creative and scientific advances in a
way that is mutually beneficial. This program encourages new ways of
thinking about one discipline in terms of another, so that the
interdisciplinary nature of the project is a means to an end rather than an
end in itself.
II. PROGRAM DESCRIPTION

Information technology is playing an increasing role in extending the
capability of human creative thinking and problem solving, and conversely,
creative uses of information technology are leading to new areas of research
and innovation. Creativity is often the result of a design process in which
the exploration of possible designs changes our perspective on what the
design can or should achieve. A designer develops new artifacts in the
context of a perceived need or problem specification. In creative design,
the reflection on problem finding becomes as important as problem solving.
The combination of creativity and design thinking in information technology,
science, and engineering has the potential to define new areas and lead to
increased successful innovation. *Advances:* CreativeIT seeks proposals for
projects whose objectives are new models of creativity, new models for
research and education, or creativity enhancing tools developed in the
context of a specific discipline.

*Research Areas: *The following research areas elaborate on these potential
types of advances as guidelines for describing how the objectives of the
project contribute to CreativeIT.

   1. *Understanding Creative Cognition and Computation. *Research in this
   area develops or applies cognitive models that serve as inspiration for
   computational models of creativity, support for human creativity, or
   approaches for educating people to be more creative. This research is
   typically done by adopting or adapting a model of cognition and evaluating
   its creative performance in different contexts, or developing a new model of
   creativity based on empirical or ethnographic studies. The emphasis in this
   area is the development of new models of cognition and computation that
   explain or simulate creativity and how these models open up new research
   areas in computing and cognitive science.
   2. *Creativity to Stimulate Breakthroughs in Science and Engineering. *This
   area considers the role and performance of creative professionals in
   developing new technologies, discovering new patterns in information, and in
   finding new ways of seeing, knowing, and doing computing, science and
   engineering. This area seeks to foster research that is conducted with
   groups of people from different backgrounds in which the creative synergy is
   focused on a specific context, problem, or perceived need. The result of
   this research is a new product, new model, or new area of research. The
   evaluation of the results of this kind of research does not follow directly
   from existing metrics or performance criteria and therefore may need to
   redefine relevant performance criteria.
   3. *Educational Approaches that Encourage Creativity.* This area
   considers a broad range of approaches to learning that encourages
   creativity: multi-disciplinary teaching and learning, design studio
   environments, skills development through making and doing, serious games,
   and open-ended problem-based learning. This area includes the development
   and evaluation of innovative computational environments for learning that
   reward creativity leading to transformative changes in curriculum objectives
   and structure.
   4. *Supporting Creativity with Information Technology. *This area
   develops new software and interaction design to support people in being more
   creative and evaluates their performance through user studies either in
   controlled environments with empirical studies or in the context of a
   complex problem or situation with ethnographic studies. The emphasis in this
   area is the development of new computing environments where the environment
   itself may be a creative product, and the environment is intended to support
   people in their creative activities.