SAVE THE DATE: Creativity Week at Universidade Católica Portuguesa

The Creativity Week will focus on creativity as a central topic for understanding human action, culture and knowledge. Creativity is often associated with imagination, artistic expression, invention or scientific discovery, but it can also be understood more broadly as the capacity to perceive possibilities, develop new connections and respond to problems in ways that are not merely repetitive. For this reason, creativity is relevant not only to the arts, but also to education, research, technology, social life and institutional change. The programme of the Creativity Week will therefore approach creativity both as a concept to be examined critically and as a practice that can be applied to contemporary challenges.

Current social, technological and environmental changes have made creativity an important topic for universities and for society more broadly. The development of artificial intelligence raises new questions about imagination, authorship, originality, and human agency. At the same time, contemporary challenges such as conflict, sustainability, democratic participation, and social innovation require the ability to formulate problems differently and to explore alternatives. The programme will consider how creativity can contribute to these discussions, while also examining its limits, its conditions, and its specific role in human and institutional contexts.

The Creativity Week will address these questions through a programme that combines philosophical reflection, interdisciplinary research, applied workshops, collaborative laboratories, and engagement with real-world contexts. The aim is to create a space in which participants can think critically about creativity while also practising it as a method for inquiry, cooperation, and transformation.

The central theme of the Creativity Week is creativity as a human, cultural, and transformative force. The programme will explore creativity from philosophical, artistic, scientific, educational, social and technological perspectives, paying particular attention to its role in the twenty-first century.

The Week will be structured around three major thematic challenges:

1. Creativity and Artificial Intelligence
   Participants will explore how artificial intelligence reshapes our understanding of imagination, authorship, originality, agency and human distinctiveness. This theme invites critical reflection on whether machines can be creative, what kinds of creativity AI may simulate or support, and how human creativity can be preserved, expanded and reinterpreted in technologically mediated environments.
2. Creativity and Conflict Resolution
   Creativity will also be approached as a resource for dialogue, mediation, democratic engagement and social repair. This thematic axis will examine how creative practices can help individuals and communities respond to disagreement, polarization, violence, cultural conflict, and institutional fragmentation.
3. Creativity towards Sustainability and Social Transformation
   A third focus will consider creativity as a driver of sustainable change. Participants will reflect on how universities, researchers, students, schools, companies, and regional stakeholders can work together to imagine and develop new responses to ecological, societal, and institutional challenges.

The Creativity Week will combine academic, practical, collaborative and cultural formats. The programme will include keynote lectures with international speakers, thematic workshops, interdisciplinary working groups, Creativity Labs, public-facing sessions, presentations of projects, feedback moments and opportunities for structured and informal networking.

The Creativity Week will also include a Blended Intensive Programme (BIP), bringing together virtual and in-person learning activities.

A distinctive feature of the Creativity Week will be the connection between conceptual reflection and concrete contexts of action. Participants will not only discuss creativity as an abstract idea; they will be invited to use creative methods to address problems, develop proposals, test collaborative approaches and exchange perspectives with peers, teachers, researchers and external partners.

The Creativity Week will also contribute to the doctoral, research and innovation ecosystem of the Transform4Europe Alliance. Several activities will be connected with doctoral education, early-stage research and the development of collaborative academic networks.

1. The PhD Conference will provide space for doctoral candidates and early-stage researchers to present their work, discuss ideas, receive feedback and establish international academic connections within the Alliance.
2. The Matchmaking for Excellence activity will promote academic networking among researchers and staff from T4EU partner universities, helping to identify shared interests, potential collaborations and future joint initiatives, including research projects, training programmes, innovation activities and funding opportunities.
3. The Summer School dimension will focus on skills development, institutional support and career orientation for doctoral candidates, postdoctoral researchers, and young academics. It will contribute to the exchange of good practices across partner universities and to the development of a more transparent and collaborative environment for academic career development within T4EU.
4. The Transformational Labs will function as spaces of co-creation oriented towards societal, environmental and digital transformation. They will bring together students, researchers and stakeholders in learning-by-doing formats, encouraging participants to generate ideas, develop research perspectives and design collaborative responses to challenges faced by European regions and communities.

The Creativity Week is conceived also as a living laboratory for the University itself. It asks how creativity can become part of the way universities teach, research, collaborate and serve society. It also reflects the broader ambition of the Transform4Europe Alliance, to connect knowledge, responsibility, innovation and social impact across European regions.

By bringing together philosophy, the arts, literature, science, technology, education, business and civic engagement, the Creativity Week will create a shared and interdisciplinary environment for critical reflection and practical experimentation. It will invite participants to move beyond disciplinary boundaries, to work with others, to confront complex problems and to imagine new forms of personal, institutional, and social transformation.