Creativity is an essential component in the development of innovative education strategies. Bohm (1996) highlights complementary relationships between science and art as leading to deeper insights that enrich both fields, with novel hypotheses suggested by images in other contexts. Findings from two recent research projects on innovation and interprofessional education in Scotland yield lessons about how this insight can benefit networks of practitioners, policy makers, and higher education curriculum developers working together to develop more coherently theorised interprofessional education initiatives. This ‘co-production model’ is seen as critical in developing and sustaining innovative health higher education (Lewitt, Snowden, & Sheward, 2014). In order to foster a creative environment amongst professionals who are used to working in a “risk aversive” health and social care environment, images were used to initiate conversations around concepts, gaps, and needs in interprofessional education, and the design of theoretical models. Conversations with interviewees and between the researchers were recorded and comparative discourse analyses undertaken. The paper examines how visual imagery supported more focused and detailed examination of issues within the research interview process and the discourse analysis process when interview transcripts were compared and contrasted. Through this process, new meanings, connections and juxtapositions were revealed. This attention to imagery also led to increased appreciation of how the poetic in everyday speech (Banaji, Burn, & Buckingham, 2006) can precipitate new insights and collaborations in curriculum development.

Banaji, S., Burn, A. & Buckingham, D. (2006). The Rhetorics of creativity: a review of the literature Arts council England, Centre for the Study of Children, Youth and Media, Institute of Education, University of London. ISBN: 978-0-728-71317-8. Bohm, D. (1996). On Creativity, Routledge London & New York; ISBN: 978-0-415-33640-6. Lewitt, M., Snowden, A. & Sheward, L. (2014). Developing and Sustaining a Culture of Innovation in Health Higher Education. Council of Deans of Health UK. http://www.councilofdeans.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/FINAL-Literature-Review-Culture-of-Innovation-clean-v-3.pdf