Creativity in teaching as a factor in bringing universities closer to social challenges

Abstract

The article proposes a reflection on the contribution of creativity as a response to the new global challenges that societies are facing: the proposal aims to rethink the formulas that university education can use to stimulate this human capacity. The work focuses on the idea defended by Wallas, who considered creativity as the result of an evolutionary process that allowed humans to adapt quickly to altered environments (1926). Given the disruptions that the Covid-19 pandemic has caused to social and economic activities, it seems necessary to understand that the challenges faced by organisations must also be taken on by academia, and higher education institutions must therefore be prepared to train professionals who can be part of the solution to the problem. So what skills are required at the level of education? Do universities offer courses geared towards the exercise of applied creativity? What characteristics should be included in the training of communication professionals as part of their university education? To do this, a review of the concept of creativity is proposed, with particular attention to the relevance of creativity in the scientific and academic context. After that, the article presents the mapping of educational offerings at this level, evaluating the curricula of advertising and public relations courses in Portugal and Spain (following the ranking of Shanghai), to understand if higher education institutions are prepared or not to train professionals aligned with the requirements of the new social landscape after the pandemic. The study concludes that the presence of creativity in the curricula of Spanish and Portuguese main universities is residual and is practically limited to the specialties linked to communication. Far from playing a major role in training university students to equip them with the tools to enable them to develop professionally in a changing environment, the higher education system continues to live behind its back on professional needs.