This paper presents the research results concerning the meaning of university space and its design for students. The issue of educational space is discussed in pedagogical research increasingly often; however, this still rarely concerns higher education, which is frequently treated as if it were independent from the space in which it takes place. During the study, verbal descriptions of desired university spaces were analyzed together with artworks on the same topic prepared by 276 pedagogy students at the University of Lodz in Poland. The results reveal a clear discrepancy between the educational spaces imagined by students and those that currently exist. For students, the shape and design of university buildings, their equipment, functions, and aesthetic qualities are highly important. Their expectations reflect social needs, their understanding of learning and teaching, and the need for freedom, especially in creative activity. A common feature of almost all analyzed works is the presence of qualities characteristic of Ray Oldenburg’s so-called “third place”: a neutral place that allows people to be with their friends, observe their surroundings, and present themselves to others. Today, “third places” are becoming increasingly important, yet this is still not adequately recognized in traditional university spaces. The design of university buildings should therefore reflect not only modern interior design trends but also a philosophy of education; awareness of educational goals and the needs of those who use these spaces should be the starting point for creating them. This paper contributes to filling the gap in academic reflection on the meaning of space in higher education, especially in relation to creativity.
This article introduces disability art, a form of art gaining social visibility and attracting academic attention worldwide. It aims to demonstrate how disability art can broaden our understanding of reality, including the phenomenon of humanness. By revealing the creative dimension of disability, which we consider a form of human difference, this article draws parallels between the negative social treatment of disability and witch hunts, arguing that such treatment is a prejudiced exclusionary social practice directed against human difference. It has become especially prominent in the context of scientific and technological expansion, which shapes the cultural conditions of the contemporary world. The analysis integrates the disability rights discourse, the concept of artistic research, and one author’s technologically mediated experience of disability, further exploring the relationship between disability and the revelation of human creative potential (Markuckas, 2026).
This article examines how Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) mediate creativity, sustainability communication, and agency in participatory urban planning focused on greenery integration. Employing a comparative secondary analysis and a most-different-systems design (MDSD), we interpret two contrasting initiatives: an AI-assisted intergenerational workshop in Betania, Panama, and a GIS-enabled citizen science project in Sankt Augustin, Germany. A four-layer analytic pipeline guided the study, combining structured extraction, thematic synthesis, a scoring rubric, and cross-case comparison. The results show that AI facilitated participants’ comprehension and creative engagement with complex spatial information through real-time visualization, accelerated divergent ideation, and strengthened intergenerational dialogue, resulting in more than twenty design proposals and measurable increases in inclusion and motivation. GIS, by contrast, elicited distributed evidence through crowdmapping and workshops, converging lay observations into policy-relevant insights and sustaining participation over a longer timeframe. Cross-case synthesis revealed inclusive, digitally mediated participation as the common explanatory factor behind enhanced collaboration and creativity. The study contributes theoretically by connecting Csikszentmihalyi’s systems view and the Four C model to digital participation. It proposes a hybrid framework that combines AI’s generative speed with GIS’s spatial grounding, linking visionary co-design to evidence-based co-production. This approach advances both the theoretical understanding of digitally mediated creativity and the practical guidance available to stakeholders pursuing more inclusive and resilient participatory processes.
STEAM education is necessary to ensure the success of creative education. The interdisciplinary approach offered in STEAM learning considerably enables to shape student creativity. However, STEAM learning has not fully explored its various elements, particularly “Art” element. In fact, artistic and cultural values contained in “Art” are able to be the potential sources to develop creative education. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to investigate the impacts of implementing the STEAM approach in creative education. The review method was carried out using the PRISMA framework (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis) by analyzing 19 scientific publications involving 2520 students. The findings of this review show that the Art element plays an important role in STEAM learning, especially in creative education (the Size Effect ranges from 0.04–1.32). In addition, artistic and cultural integration by combining STEAM learning and EDP strategy (STEAM-EDP) is a promising step in enhancing students’ creative education as an effort to fulfill the demands of 21st century skills.
The development of digital health technologies has led to the emergence of a distinct group of entrepreneurs working at the intersection of healthcare and technology. Digital health entrepreneurship is inherently creative, as it involves developing solutions that transform healthcare systems, support patient empowerment, and improve the delivery of health services. Digital health entrepreneurs operate in dynamic healthcare systems characterised by regulatory requirements, technological constraints, and ongoing uncertainty, which continuously shape both problems and acceptable solutions. Drawing on literature from entrepreneurship, creative problem solving, and digital health innovation, this conceptual paper frames creative problem solving as an ongoing process shaped by healthcare system dynamics and sustained through self-directed learning. By integrating entrepreneurial competencies, divergent–convergent problem-solving processes, and learning autonomy, the article clarifies how creative problem solving is maintained in digital health contexts and offers a foundation for future empirical research.
