Workshop for Postdocs on the Creative Scientific Process

Where do new scientific ideas come from? And can we create the conditions that make it easier to look at our research from a different perspective?

Science progress moves between two complementary modes: Day Science, the rigorous testing of ideas, and Night Science, the creative process where those ideas first emerge. Indeed, what we call the scientific method tells us what to do once we have a hypothesis – but where do these hypotheses come from in the first place? François Jacob famously called this part the realm of ‘Night Science’.

Drawing on the Night Science training framework developed by Profs Itai Yanai and Martin Lercher, this workshop offers postdoctoral researchers a first introduction to approaches that can help foster more exploratory and creative scientific thinking. A central element of the workshop is the “Science Buddy” approach. Through one-to-one interactions with other researchers, participants will explore how conversation and the perspective of someone outside their field can help them step outside of familiar patterns of thinking.

This interactive workshop is designed specifically to:

• Explore the distinction between analytical and creative modes of scientific thinking
• Experience Night Science exercises with a Science Buddy to look at research questions or challenges from different perspectives
• Expand thinking beyond conventional frameworks
• Step into the creative side of the scientific process