About Cognitive Innovation
Cognitive Innovation is a theoretical framework that describes the nested, dynamic, evolving relationship between living organisms and their environment. It is concerned with creativity, adaptation, and evolution along multiple scales of organization "from cell to society" (Gummerum and Denham, 2014). Cognitive innovation can be understood as "a recursive process in which an individual probes its boundaries to seek out new knowledge, selects promising avenues for more extensive exploitation, and synthesizes what it learns within its growing body of knowledge, which includes knowledge of how to act in the world and how to interact with other individuals" (Denham and Punt, 2017). It draws from a range of theories, approaches, and disciplines: psychology, neuroscience, education, the arts, humanities, philosophy, design, computational sciences, anthropology, biology, cybernetics, autopoeisis, and systems theory.
Learn more about Cognitive Innovation by exploring the resources on this page.
Gummerum, M., & Denham, S. (2014). Cognitive Innovation: From Cell to Society. Europe’s Journal of Psychology, 10(4), 586–588. https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v10i4.879
CogNovo was an innovative Doctoral Training Programme, funded by the EU Marie Skłodowska Curie initiative and the University of Plymouth, to foster research training in the emerging field of Cognitive Innovation. Between 2014 and 2017, CogNovo offered transdisciplinary training that combined scientific studies of the neural correlates and mechanisms of creativity, with investigations into the role of creativity in human cognition, and their application in sustainable technological and social innovation.
Denham, S. L., & Punt, M. (2017). Abstract of “Cognitive Innovation: A View from the Bridge.” Leonardo, 50(2), 184–185. https://doi.org/10.1162/LEON_a_01386.
Off the Lip: Collaborative Approaches to Cognitive Innovation. Special issue of Avant, Volume VIII, Special Issue. ISBN: 978-83-944622-04-6.
- Frank Loesche & Klara Łucznik: Our GIFT to All of Us: GA(Y)AM (Preface)
- Michael Punt & Susan L. Denham: Cognitive Innovation, Irony and Collaboration
- Tomas R. Colin: Analyzing Ambiguity in the Standard Definition of Creativity
- Hannah Drayson: Academic Carelessness, Bootstrapping, and the Cybernetic Investigator
- Michael S. Kristensen, Frank Loesche, & Diego S. Maranan: Navigating Cognitive Innovation
- Liam Maloney: Music As Water: The Functions of Music from a Utilitarian Perspective
- François Lemarchand: From Computational Aesthetic Prediction for Images to Films and Online Videos
- Pamela Gloria Cajilig: Designing Life After the Storm: Improvisations in Post-Disaster Housing Reconstruction As Socio-Moral Practice
- Mona Nasser: How Do Selected National Funding Agencies Communicate the Concept of Cognitive Innovation on Their Public Website?
- Joanna Griffin: Displacing Creativity: Artists, Space Scientists and Audience-Led Television in 1970s India
- Kathryn B. Francis, Agi Haines, & Raluca A. Briazu: Thinkering through Experiments: Nurturing Transdisciplinary Approaches to the Design of Testing Tools
- Mihaela Taranu & Frank Loesche: Spectres of Ambiguity in Divergent Thinking and Perceptual Switching
- Tara Zaksaite, Peter M. Jones, and Chris J. Mitchell: Creativity and Blocking: No Evidence for an Association
- Thea Ionescu, Alexandra Marian, Paula Moldovan, Beatrix Perde, Roxana Vescan, Calin Hopsitar, Doris Rogobete, & Ligia Suciu: Integration of Processes in the Study of Insight and Innovation
- John Matthias: Creation through Polychronization
- Pinar Oztop, Frank Loesche, Diego S. Maranan, Kathryn B. Francis, Vaibhav Tyagi, & Ilaria Torre: (Not So) Dangerous Liaisons: A Framework for Evaluating Collaborative Research Projects
- Jess Rymer: An Argument for Investigation into Collaborative, Choreomusical Relationships within Contemporary Performance: A Practical and Theoretical Enquiry into the Distinct Contributions of a Collaborative, Co-creative Approach
- Michael Straeubig: Playing with/as Systems: Short Paper, Discussion and Demonstration
- Thomas Wennekers, Mathew Emmett, & Susan L. Denham: ConversationPiece II: Displaced and Rehacked
- Guy Edmonds & Shaun Lewin: The Displaced ‘Dispositif’
- Klara Łucznik & Frank Loesche: Dance Improvisational Cognition
- Monika Chylińska: Counterfactual Imagination as a Mental Tool for Innovation
- Thea Ionescu: When Is a Cognitive System Flexible? The Variability–Stability–Flexibility Pattern on the Way to Novel Solutions
- Eugenia Stamboliev: On ‘Spillikin – A Love Story’: Issues around the Humanoid Robot as a Social Actor on Stage
- Jane Grant & Joanne “Bob” Whalley: Haunted Bodies: Cell Switching, Getting Lost and Adaptive Geographies
- Jacqui Knight: A Relational Ecology of Photographic Practices
- Klara Łucznik, Abigail Jackson, Aska Sakuta, & Eleonora Siarava: Let’s Improv It: The Embodied Investigation of Social Collaboration