European Journal of Engineering Education

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Open the ‘black box’ creativity and innovation:

a study of activities in R&D departments. Some
prospects for engineering education

Charlyne Millet, David Oget & Denis Cavallucci

To cite this article: Charlyne Millet, David Oget & Denis Cavallucci (2017) Open the ‘black
box’ creativity and innovation: a study of activities in R&D departments. Some prospects for
engineering education, European Journal of Engineering Education, 42:6, 1000-1024, DOI:
10.1080/03043797.2016.1249341

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/03043797.2016.1249341

Published online: 10 Nov 2016.

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EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF ENGINEERING EDUCATION, 2017
VOL. 42, NO. 6, 1000–1024
https://doi.org/10.1080/03043797.2016.1249341

Open the ‘black box’ creativity and innovation: a study of activities

in R&D departments. Some prospects for engineering education
a b b
Charlyne Millet *, David Oget and Denis Cavallucci
a
Faculty of Education, University of Strasbourg, Strasbourg, France; bDesign Engineering Laboratory (LGECO),
National Institute of Applied Sciences (INSA), Graduate School for Engineers and Architects, Strasbourg, France

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

Innovation is a key component to the success and longevity of companies. Received 18 November 2014
Our research opens the ‘black box’ of creativity and innovation in Accepted 12 October 2016
R&D teams. We argue that understanding the nature of R&D projects in
KEYWORDS
terms of creativity/innovation, efficiency/inefficiency, is important for R&D; creativity; innovation;
designing education policies and improving engineering curriculum. inventiveness; engineering
Our research addresses the inventive design process, a lesser known education; curriculum gap
aspect of the innovation process, in 197 R&D departments of industrial
sector companies in France. One fundamental issue facing companies
is to evaluate processes and results of innovation. Results show that
the evaluation of innovation is confined by a lack of methodology
of inventive projects. We will be establishing the foundations of a
formal ontology for inventive design projects and finally some
recommendations for engineering education.

Introduction: interest and perspectives of the study

‘Engineering education worldwide is currently experiencing a major transition from traditional
programs towards approaches that better prepare students for engineering in the context of
social, economic and environmental challenges of the twenty-first century’ (Gattie et al. 2011,
521). Challenges represent the necessity for companies to develop their capacity to adapt, to
renew themselves and to stand out in the face of heightened economic competitiveness and
competition. Against a backdrop of global movement in the era of innovation and from a per-
spective of effective performance, one fundamental issue facing companies is the question of
how to assess their capacity for innovation. For a company, evaluating processes of innovation
amounts to a demonstration of its vitality, its level of performance and, ultimately, contributing
to its longevity. Starting from this point, how to prepare engineering students for challenges?
Research demonstrates that ‘faculty’s weakness in engineering practice causes a sizeable gap
between what is taught in school and what is expected from young engineers by their employ-
ers and customers’ (Wulf and Fisher 2002). From one perspective, ‘(…) the need to establish pro-
cesses and strategies that are increasingly more creative has become a major challenge (…)’ for
companies (Oliver and Roos 2006). From another, ‘innovation is a form of industrial systems
development’ (Boly 2004, 42). Therefore, creativity and innovation are key components to the
success and longevity of companies.

CONTACT Charlyne Millet charlyne.millet@univ-lehavre.fr

*
Present address: Département Carrières Sociales, IUT – Université du Havre, Place Robert Schuman BP 4006, F-76610 Le Havre,
France
Charlyne Millet has moved during 2014 fall, from Strasbourg University/INSA Graduate School for Engineers and Architects, where
the research was conducted. She is now teacher-researcher at the Havre University.
© 2016 SEFI
 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF ENGINEERING EDUCATION 1001

So, we argue that understanding the nature of R&D projects in terms of creativity/innovation, effi-
ciency/inefficiency, is indispensable for designing education policies and improving engineering cur-
riculum. In this article, we propose to open the black box of R&D teams.
What means creativity and innovation for R&D teams? How can we measure the creativity of a
company? Is it possible? Firstly, we will examine the issue of measuring creativity and innovation
at a level which has been only marginally developed in the scientific literature: the evaluation of
the degree of inventiveness of an R&D project. For this, we will focus by a qualitative approach on
the inventive production of R&D projects. We will base our study on the results of our qualitative
survey involving 197 companies in the automobile sector with regard to their inventive R&D projects.
Secondly, we will develop an ontology of inventive projects (IPs) that could be a starting point for
some prospects in engineering education.

Background of the study: creativity and innovation, the issue of measurement

Creativity and innovation: what does it mean?
It seems to be necessary to define our purpose. What do we mean by creativity? What are the defining
elements? How to differentiate creativity of innovation? Creativity represents ‘(…) a decisive capacity in
producing innovation’ (Chantelot 2010, 515). Innovation is associated with the emergence of a market-
able product, whereas creativity occurs primarily upstream of the innovation process, at the ideation
phase. While many individuals are prepared to agree that no consensus exists for defining creativity,
such as Chantelot who invokes the ‘complexity characterizing the contours of the concept’ (2010)
and Mnisri (2007) who criticises the ‘complexity of the object and the diversity of its scope of appli-
cation’, others such as Zampetakis, Bouranta, and Moustakis (2010) base their definition of creativity
on the comments of Amabile (1996) in the following terms: ‘Creativity is considered as a key to personal
and organizational social prosperity; creativity signifies the production of novel and useful ideas, and
marks the starting point for innovation and entrepreneurship’ (Zampetakis, Bouranta, and Moustakis
2010, 23). Furthermore, Auger (2004) defines creativity as ‘a process through which an individual or
a small group engages in the creation of an idea, a service, a product, a procedure or a process that
they and an organization consider original and remarkable’. Csíkszentmihályi (1996) also comments
on notions of transformation and change that involve creativity as follows: ‘Creativity is any act, idea,
or product that changes an existing domain or that transforms an existing domain into a new one’.
In more precise terms, creativity appears subjective, specific to a context and may be approached
on several levels, either individually or on an organisational plane. Furthermore, we have decided to
discuss three dimensions through which creativity may be defined (Piffer 2012). These three dimen-
sions are novelty, appropriateness and impact: ‘A product which is useful but not novel (a car might
be judged novel in an ancient civilization but not in the contemporary one), or novel but not useful
(e.g. bizarre or schizophrenic ideas) cannot be considered creative’ (Piffer 2012). Furthermore, the
concept of appropriateness refers to the impact that a creative product may have on a consumer:
‘The notion of appropriateness “evokes people’s intention to purchase, adopt, use, and appreciate” a
(creative) product’ (Piffer 2012). The complexity of the study of creativity is not especially conducive
to measuring it. Now, we will focus on this issue: measurement.

Limits of measures of creativity and innovation processes

The progressive transition from the quality era to the innovation era (Rousselot, Zanni-Merk, and
Cavalucci 2012) has caused new requirements to emerge, expressed by market players. While pro-
cesses aimed at attaining quality have resulted in the incorporation of a portfolio of measurement
methods and tools into a company’s practices that are more or less accurate and formalised, such
as AMDEC, 8D, 5S, MRP, 5M, 6σ, Pareto and Brainstorming, similar tools for measuring innovation
are still in the development stage. Their use in companies is neither structured nor formalised. The
1002 C. MILLET ET AL.

transition to the era of quality produced tools for measuring quality. The transition to the era of inno-
vation produces tools for measuring creativity. Indeed, creativity is a fundamental component of the
economic cycle. Measuring creativity and innovation in companies contributes to improving quality
and obtaining a useful competitive advantage on the market. It is a ‘tool for companies to use in dif-
ferentiating themselves strategically’ (Mnisri 2007). If the creative process can be considered a ‘stage
within the innovation model’ (Amabile 1996), then the success of an innovative product depends on
creativity. Measuring creativity would make it possible ‘(…) to verify, to inspect, to duplicate, to guar-
antee results and to improve’ (Auger 2004). While some authors assert that creativity can be
measured, others denigrate this premise. Auger (2004) affirms that ’the determination to measure
creativity has led companies to implement standardised and rationalised management practices
for creativity. Yet, measuring and standardisation, while effective in many cases, are not appropriate
to managing creativity. Reducing creativity to the application of a standardised process would pri-
marily lead to deforming it and ultimately to inhibiting it’. Other authors criticise the fog surrounding
the concept of creativity and consequently the impossibility of creating reliable tools that are ‘respon-
sive, reliable and valid’ (Lubart et al. 2003). Still, an analysis of the literature on the subject makes a
distinction between three different approaches to creative measurement. These three approaches,
which we describe briefly, are of an economic, productive and quantitative nature and they
present numerous limitations.
The economic approach features financial measures, particularly those concerning R&D invest-
ments. This approach uses capital expenditures in R&D departments or projects as an indicator.
The approach is a particular favourite with economists and managers because it can be used to
draw comparisons between different companies. Investment in R&D is an indicator that illustrates
the importance a company places on innovation and its determination to undertake innovative pro-
jects. These data were often used as indicators of innovation. For example, R&D expenditures are
investments that create sustainable contributions which, in turn, can bring about innovations. Repre-
senting and measuring capital invested in R&D appear to be a more appropriate indicator of the inno-
vative character of a company than counting up only the expenditures in the sector. We would also
suggest that this economic approach remains a simple and easy solution to implement, which can be
used to regularly estimate and compare the various projects within a company.
The productive approach deals more with results and purposes. It encompasses project indicators
such as the number of patent applications submitted and awarded, references of patents used by the
project and the time invested in research for a project. The number of patent applications submitted
is a quantitative measure, while patent citations reflect more a qualitative characteristic. Obviously,
the greater the number of patent citations submitted, the greater the impact for a company. For
many years, patents and patent citations were an excellent means of taking the innovative
measure of a company (Kabla 1994). The patent can be used as an indicator because it protects a
new idea or product that results from a creative or inventive activity. Patents can, therefore,
furnish indirect indicators of the effectiveness of innovation expenditures (Dodgson and Hinze 2000).
The quantitative approach concerns measuring the quantity and quality of ideas stemming from
creativity and brainstorming sessions (or during any other process of this type). In this way, the quan-
tity of ideas produced by an R&D engineer can be an objectively based indicator for companies
(Langdon 2008, 2012).
However, these approaches present several constraints. While R&D investment is probably the
only pertinent economic indicator, it provides only a partial perspective of the dedicated research
effort. It only targets an R&D domain type (Godin 1996) and does not account for informal research
(Munier 2002). The second approach, which is productive by nature, measures patent applications
filed; but again, this approach can only provide a very limited perspective of the extent of a com-
pany’s innovation effort. All innovative production does not always result in filing a patent appli-
cation; not everything can be patented (Kemp et al. 2003). Furthermore, whether or not a patent
is filed depends partially on the economic strategy of a company (Kabla 1994) and all companies
cannot file patent applications (Godin 1996). The third approach, quantitative in nature, raises the
 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF ENGINEERING EDUCATION 1003

problem of the inventive value of ideas projected. Is a new idea necessarily invention-oriented? Do
new ideas, however numerous, all necessarily end up as innovations? What is the potential of each
new idea of attaining the prototype stage? What is the risk of losing the innovative component of an
idea during the transition of the idea to an object?
We just saw that it is difficult for companies to determine their levels of creativity and innovation.
Nevertheless as we saw, it is important for companies to find their place on the market in terms of
capacity of innovation. In order to overcome these obstacles, we propose a new point of view and
we suggest a different research orientation.

Overcoming the obstacles and proposing a new point of view

Available literature in the area of creativity measurement is limited. With no common definition and
no clarity in the definitions that have been postulated, proposing a way to measure creativity faces
increasing difficulties (Piffer 2012). Zampetakis, Bouranta, and Moustakis (2010), working from Feist
(1998) and Runco (2007), state that the only existing consensus is that which indicates that the
measure of creativity, especially on an individual basis, is a highly complex phenomenon that has
continuously been the source of debate and of criticism. Indeed, ‘addressing innovation brings
one back to the area of studying complex phenomena’ (Boly 2004), which are unpredictable. It is
for this reason that researchers such as Piffer (2012) evoke the impossibility of a standardised
measure of creativity. Few authors can agree that it is possible to measure creativity. Our objective
is to overcome this ‘measure – no measure’ posture. For better clarity, we have devised a schematic
representation of the place creativity and innovation, or innovative potential, hold in the process of a
company’s economic success and longevity, which is presented in Figure 1. At the core of this sche-
matic drawing, where creativity melds with innovation, we suggest focusing on inventiveness, a
lesser known aspect of the process.
In this framework, we seek to differentiate between the concepts of measuring and of evalu-
ating. If the measure can correspond to a figure-based aspect that is quantitative, to us, evaluation
of the measure refers back to a qualitative characterisation of companies’ activities according to a
reference base. Our approach accords a more qualitative than quantitative value to the evaluation

Figure 1. Between creativity and innovation: inventiveness.

1004 C. MILLET ET AL.

of the innovative potential of companies (Hadji 2000). However, the difficulty is significant
because R&D activities are often considered to belong to a ‘black box’ that it would be practically
impossible to control systematically (Ojanen and Vuola 2003). According to Batey’s approach
(2012), creativity can be considered simultaneously through the 4Ps approach of person,
process, press and product. An approach centred on the process and phases of creation can
achieve a consensus. The survey that we carried out identified and differentiated the inventive
production of R&D department staff in various companies. Our ultimate goal is to understand
how companies define, evaluate and manage their R&D projects in order to prepare engineering
students for future challenges ahead.

The survey conducted

Participants
We carried out a case study, which appears as an appropriate method for analysing and understanding
complex phenomena such as ours. Our study focused on the characterisation of inventive R&D activi-
ties. We used an online questionnaire (see Appendix) intended for the R&D managers of 197 companies
operating in different business sectors, particularly in automobile manufacturing, in an attempt to
determine the greater part of their perceptions concerning their inventive activities. The main
purpose of our survey was to establish a state of practices in R&D departments of these companies.
We mainly have chosen companies from the north-east of France (Alsace and France-Comté
regions), which are members of the competitiveness cluster ‘Future Vehicle’. The cluster is a partnership,
which brings together small and large firms, research laboratories and educational establishments. It
includes more than 310 members that work in synergy for the competitiveness of the territory.
Nonetheless, our survey is a non-representative survey because of some characteristics of the
people and companies involved (that is important to effects) are not typical of the wider population.

Materials and procedure

The questionnaire was created with Lime Survey, a survey software. The questionnaire consisted of 37
questions, primarily multiple choice that assembled qualitative and quantitative information.
The questions are divided into six categories, as follows:
The first category concerns administrative issues that deal with the characteristics of the company
being surveyed and of its R&D department, for example, the type of company, its size, and functions
and status of R&D staff members.
The second category of questions deals with the projects carried out in the R&D departments. We
hoped to determine whether any differentiation existed in the type of projects underway. Do R&D
departments know or make the distinction between routine or standard projects? For us, standard
projects use almost exclusively solidly established activities for which methods are well known
and for which results are essentially the fruit of optimisation reasoning. We qualify as inventive pro-
jects which could involve research activities untried by the company and that could end up as an
invention or innovation, or that sometimes bring into play a preliminary thought process to
address a problem previously deemed insoluble. What do these companies call their IPs? What
does inventiveness and innovation mean to them? What are the human, managerial, equipment,
financial, temporal and other elements that distinguish a routine project (RP) from and inventive
one? How do companies characterise the inventive dimension and management of an IP?
A third category of questions centred on the process of an IP. What are the rules, methods and
methodological procedures used by the company and its R&D department that serve as a framework
for IPs and for organising R&D activities?
The fourth category of questions is based on the people involved in IPs, to include the number of
teams, the number of projects completed, the proportion of collaborative work and the individual
characteristics of these persons.
 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF ENGINEERING EDUCATION 1005

A fifth category of questions considers the results of an IP. Under what circumstances does a
company consider a project successful? Or more quantitatively, how many patents does a company
file for per time unit and per person? The final category of questions takes stock of confidentiality issues.
The principal objective of our study is to understand, grasp and qualify the inventive activities of
R&D staff. The results of our survey were used to establish a model, based on real data, of these activi-
ties. This model may be compared with another more theoretical model, derived from the results of our
analysis of the scientific literature. As part of the framework of this contribution, we chose to exploit and
analyse results qualitatively, bearing primarily on the type of IPs and their development process.
The companies surveyed operate for the greater part in the automobile industry. A total of 197
companies were solicited, ranging from car components manufacturers to drive specialists, to
respond to the online questionnaire. The received responses were exactly sorted out according to
the way they were completed.
The data from the answers were analysed using our survey software. A qualitative analysis of the
data relating to the project and the inventive process that we engaged upon led to several results. We
should state that, due to the high strategic value and the degree of confidentially of the data we
sought to acquire, not all companies chose, or were able, to complete the survey. Some of them, par-
ticularly National School of Applied Science (INSA) partners, were entirely transparent and partici-
pated fully in our survey. Nonetheless, our study revealed that a portion of the companies
manifested difficulties in formalising and expressing what relates to activities within their R&D
departments. We therefore deliberately chose to limit our qualitative analysis to data culled from
some 15 selected survey responses.
The description of the selected companies highlights a great diversity of situations. The average
number of employees (555) is quite far from the regional average (61) (Insee 2010). The top 20% of
the companies employ more than 1000 people each and the 20% bottom have less than 100 employ-
ees. The companies comprise a high proportion of R&D department with an average of 153 employ-
ees, with 28% of engineers, but less than 1% of doctors.

Analysis
Results: access to the ‘black box’ of R&D teams

What is an IP for R&D teams? Distinction, terminology and characteristics

Almost all (93%) of the companies queried agreed that there exists a distinction within their R&D
departments between inventive and other RPs. However, only 50% of them explicitly named this
difference. Table 1 categorises the different terms used by companies to qualify their IPs when
they distinguish them from RPs, as they appear in our results.
Our results clearly indicate that multiple terms exist to qualify an IP. A certain similarity can be
nonetheless found between the various terms used. One can also discern the grading and categor-
isation of terms (H0, H1, H2, H3) depending on the degree of maturity and inventiveness to which the
project refers. What characterises the inventiveness of a project? This question is one of those most
frequently responded to in our survey. The respondents agreed with the notion that an IP differs from
a non-inventive or RP through its budget (for 75% of them), its duration (for 69.2% of them), the size
and make-up of the team running it (for 92.3% of them) and the managerial and strategic priorities
presented (100% of positive responses). Nonetheless, behind this display of concurrence, numerous
discordant opinions exist concerning IPs.
To summarise, we can assert that IPs are longer, more expansive, require more employees and are
in the core of the strategy. Then, we searched the reasons that can explain the additional cost of IPs.
Before, we should notice that the size, number of employees and budget of a project are generally
correlated. What are the other factors for the additional cost? Our results show that for 31% of com-
panies, the additional cost is not linked to the bigger size of the team, neither to the kind of organ-
isation in the team.
1006 C. MILLET ET AL.

Table 1. Terminology used to qualify an IP.

Innovation projects
Innovation and business line versus development
Changes to proprietary existing products
H0: Modification
H1: Small development project
H2: Large development project
H3: Innovation
Horizon1 (incremental improvisation on current products)
Horizon2 (line extension of current products)

All respondents agree that the additional cost comes from the increase in the prototyping activities,
calculations, validations or simulations; the necessity to conduct further research during the project and
the deployment of a different marketing associated with the launch of a product. The necessity to main-
tain a creative environment/climate and the use of a creativity assistance method are important for 85%
of companies. Staff training in the creativity methods and the equipment and technology dedicated to
the functioning of the team project convince only 69% of respondents.
Further questions of our survey related to the human dimensions in innovative projects allow us to
characterise the context of the innovative projects. The influence of individual dimensions in IPs is
questioned. The proportion of individual work and collaborative work is nearly equilibrated for our
respondents (54% for individual work and 46% for collaborative work). Which personal characteristics
are associated with IPs? Every respondent agrees that people engaged in the creative process should
have a high level of technical expertise (international recognition, responsibility for important pro-
jects), have an obvious ability for creativity (‘Gyro Gearloose’) and be open-minded, persistent or
even pugnacious.

Methodological organisation and framework for IPs

Our results indicate that the management of IPs arises as another thorny issue within R&D depart-
ments of companies. The issue of methodological organisation serving as a framework for IPs
covers a plethora of terms. Table 2 enumerates some of these.
Clearly, the methodological organisation used as a framework for IPs is as muddled as the nomi-
native distinction between the various projects (see Table 1). The two are certainly mutually suppor-
tive. It is also interesting to observe that the respondents themselves encountered difficulties in the
management of IPs. The haze surrounding the organisation, or project management; the lack of pro-
prietary methodology; its non-structured character; its chaotic management and its ineffectiveness
lead one to deduce that existing practices in the domain are both disorganised and diverse.

Inventive design methods in R&D teams

These findings are complemented by information concerning the design activities used in the initial
phases of IPs. These phases also feature a debilitating absence of clear methods and a wide disparity
among those that are used. Table 3 presents some of them.

Table 2. Methodological organisation as framework for IPs.

Fuelling by idea box
Little methodology, non-structured approach, chaotic management: agility, mobility, flexibility, etc.
Management of ideas: assembly and evaluation
This system is under criticism because it functions poorly and its effectiveness is questionable.
Enumeration, categorisation, etc.
Soleau envelopes, patents, classification, accounting, etc.
Project management
 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF ENGINEERING EDUCATION 1007

Table 3. Design methods used or specific to IPs.

TRIZ (theory of inventive problem solving)
TRIZ, ARIZ (algorithm of inventive problem solving), OTSM (general theory of powerful thinking)
VOC (voice Of customer), Design to cost, Ecodesign
Brainstorming
Creativity events
Analysis of customer requirements and identification of desired specificities
Intuition, curiosity, thinking out of the box, etc.
None

While certain acknowledged design methods such as TRIZ (Russian acronym for theory of inven-
tive problem solving), ARIZ (Russian acronym for algorithm of inventive problems solving), OTSM
(Russian acronym for general theory on powerful thinking) and VOC (voice of customer) are
implemented, it must be conceded that the large majority of respondents to this question use
little or no methodology (76.9% of the respondents). Can creative events be considered a design
method? Does the ‘analysis of customer requirements and identification of desired specificities’
relate to this concept? Can the ‘intuition’, ‘curiosity’ and ‘thinking outside of the box’ concepts be
associated with design methods specific to IPs? Naturally, while we can attest that certain R&D
departments are trying to organise inventive design activities, others exhibit a total absence of organ-
isation, as illustrated by the ‘none’ box in the table, which would appear to constitute a major hin-
drance to the development of a company’s inventive potential.

Motion for achieving an ontology in the domain of IPs

In all, our results show the following:

(1) That there is differentiation within R&D departments between inventive and RPs.
(2) The inventive character of a project and the concept of inventiveness are polysemous.
(3) A multitude of heterogeneous practices exist for managing IPs.
(4) This multitude also reflects major deficiencies in the methodological guidelines of these projects.
(5) There are very few design methods specifically used in IPs.
(6) Where they do exist, these design methods are multiple and varied.

In order to make our results more comprehensible, we decided to represent them in the form of an
ontology. It gathers and defines the set of objects that are known as belonging to a specific domain.
In general, an ontology comprises concepts and relationships that are used to express the knowledge
base of a given field (Zanni-Merk, Cavallucci, and Rousselot 2009). Ontologies provide the notional
and conceptual resources needed for knowledge formulation and for making knowledge explicit.
For this reason, in order to formalise the principal concepts coming out of our study on inventive
R&D projects, we wanted to draw up an ontological representation. The ontological concepts are
presented schematically as a body of objects and illustrated according to a Unified Modeling
Language-type diagram (see Figure 2).
The point of departure for our ontology of IPs is the distinction drawn between IPs and RPs within the
whole body of activities and R&D projects (a). These projects are presented in the form of ‘meta-classes’,
which are further broken down to classes and subclasses. We also wanted to represent the polysemy of
concepts (b) and practices (c) used with regard to IPs, as well as the deficiencies highlighted in the meth-
odological framework (d) and the design methods in use (e), which are particularly disparate (f).
The concepts of inventiveness (g) and creativity (h) face off at the core of IPs. While this measure
(g1) is based on the definition of an objective value (g2), its evaluation (h1) tends to be a subjective
value (h2) that is dependent on an organisational culture (i), and more broadly, on an entrepreneurial
environment (j), the intrinsic characteristics (j1) of which, such as company size and business sector or
1008 C. MILLET ET AL.

Figure 2. An ontological representation of our work.

 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF ENGINEERING EDUCATION 1009

Figure 2. Continued.

management type (j2), influence the value. In our view, the measure, which is objective, of the inven-
tive artefact (k), stands alongside the evaluation, which is subjective, of creative skills (see Figure 2).
So this ontological representation is limited to the domain of R&D projects underway, their routine
or inventive nature and their characteristics. As an ultimate aim, we can project the development of
an IT application of the measure of creativity and of the evaluation of a degree of inventiveness. For
this, it would be necessary to develop an ontology extending over the entire domain of creative
measure, from the perspective of future work. As it is, the ontology can be used to carry out quali-
tative monitoring of formal data of a company, established on the basis of observations and of a
grouping of qualitative data, with the objective of developing an index of its inventive efficiency.

Discussion: enhancing engineering practices

One of the objectives of our research is to confine the terms existing in the area of inventiveness and IPs
and to distinguish all that falls within the realm of scientific literature or of companies. We use our
results to make an analysis of existing material that can be compared to available theoretical premises.
The main problem is that little research has been conducted on the concept of inventiveness. This gap
is a reflection of and tallies with the polysemy and heterogeneity apparent in our results. We then
choose to reinterpret them from another perspective, that of the evaluation of inventive production.
We found that there is a gradation and a hierarchical organisation of terms used to qualify the extent
to which a project is inventive (see Table 1). From this we obtain two remarks. The first is that it appears
that R&D staffs in companies need indicators to evaluate their inventive production. The second is
that these staff members are showing their desire to differentiate this production depending on the
extent of their maturity with relation to the concept of technology readiness level. This causes us to
put forth two propositions. Our first proposition consists of raising the possibility of evaluating and
measuring migratory flows from one status to another in inventive production. In addition, our
results underscore the existing disparities in the use of design methods specific to IPs.
Our second proposition consists of devising a normative reference system that seeks to render
terminologies and practices in the domain of creative design, with the aim of attenuating the
deficiencies uncovered by the results of our survey. This project has been carried out at the European
level. At a French level, we have contributed (AFNOR 2014) to a norm named ‘Management of inno-
vation – management of creativity’ that organises the production of creativity by pointing out inter-
actions between ideas, invention and innovations. We have formalised the distinction between ideas
(inventive and non-inventive), invention and innovation, taking into account the capacity of each
idea to produce a patent and an innovation. This formalisation characterises a company in terms
of creative process efficiency and can be used as a quantitative indicator. Another quantitative
1010 C. MILLET ET AL.

indicator (Tahéri 2015) defines three dimensions of inventive performance in design activities: effec-
tiveness, efficiency and pertinence. Inventive effectiveness is measured through the comparison
between project output and project goals, using a criteria based on novelty, ideality and usefulness.
Research demonstrates the importance of crossing organisational borders within and outside of
the traditional engineering education system (Korhonen-Yrjanheikki, Tukiainen, and Takala 2007).
It seems to be important to restructure engineering education, build more cohesion in the engineer-
ing curriculum in order to reduce the industry–education gap.
We strongly hypothesise that there is an important educational role to be played in engineering
schools who train the people who will belong to these R&D teams in the future. Already, in 1998, the
question of teaching creativity was at the core of research on engineering education (Baillie and
Walker 1998; Court 1998; Tornkvist 1998). Some propositions centred on using more open forms of learn-
ing, for example, problem-based learning. However, this topic is still relevant (Mahboub et al. 2004; Zhou
2012). As stated by Badran, it is very important to ‘enhance creativity and innovative skills and capabilities
of a graduate engineer’ (2007). We considered that it would be a considerable advantage to companies
to have available training in creativity engineering, well upstream of the development of IPs in compa-
nies. We are effectively supposing that the inventiveness process is also a part of acquiring a skill.
From our results, we submit three proposals to enhance engineering education/curriculum
according to the three dimensions of our results. In resume, engineering education should focus
on the inventive dimension of design projects. According to our results, it seems necessary to
develop an index for inventive design projects (we start by proposing some motion for an ontology).
We could consider widening our survey to companies belonging to other industrial sectors in pursu-
ing this research to diversify our approach and broaden our ontological model, with a view of obtain-
ing a diversification and generalisation of its results, even if, in fact, our research process did not
initially fall within this calling. Secondly, the lack of methodological organisation of R&D teams
leads us to propose a development of teaching of creativity methods in engineering schools.
Our survey results about additional cost of IPs led us to conclude that the efficiency of IPs (com-
pared to RPs) could be improved by the enhancement of specific skills. Engineering education could
benefit to IPs in companies by improving abilities to prototyping activities, calculations, validations or
simulations, abilities to conducting further research during projects and learning marketing associ-
ated with the launch of a product.
Our school, INSA (a school for engineers and architects), is the breeding ground of stimulating
pedagogic experiments like this through the training that it offers. Student engineers are at the
core of the process of identifying inventive problems and must develop the capacity for verbalising
creative phases, in a pedagogic perspective of the project. At last, concerning design methods, we
suggest to generalise pedagogical methods for enhancing teaching of inventive design methods
(e.g. TRIZ) (Cavallucci and Oget 2013). The TRIZ offers a formalisation of the inventive solving engin-
eering problems. The choice of a training method for inventive design should pay attention to the
level of complexity of the proposed engineering problem. The choice of an engineering background
design method should also take into account the effectiveness of the proposed method with respect
to other methods. To date, we have not gathered any research survey to assess all design methods.
One reason may be due to the absence of a common assessment framework. We hope that the for-
malisation of the ontological scheme could contribute to the development of a common framework
to assess the likely effectiveness of design methods (Table 4).

Table 4. Proposals for engineering education/curriculum.

Dimensions Proposals
(1) Evaluation of IPs Create and develop an international index for inventive design projects (first step: our
motion for an ontology)
(2) Methodological organisation in R&D Teach management of creativity methods in engineering schools
teams
(3) Design methods Generalise pedagogy for inventive design methods (e.g. TRIZ)
 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF ENGINEERING EDUCATION 1011

Conclusion
Our approach brings a fresh view on the work concerning creativity and innovation in companies.
From an overview of scientific literature, we were able to develop a research protocol based on
the inventive activities of R&D staff in companies operating in the industrial and automobile
sectors. Our body of work featured significant qualitative added value, enabling us to form a basis
of notional and definitional contours for inventiveness and IPs and to depart from the constricted
framework encompassing the measure of creativity. Our research helped us shuffle facets heretofore
insufficiently explored concerning R&D activities in companies, such as the management of IPs, meth-
odological mechanisms being used and design methods specific to these projects. We chose to use
an ontological representation.
A driving force fuelling propositions, we present the idea of a reinterpretation of inventive activi-
ties in a work environment with a normative focus and the building of a theoretical model of flow
migrations between different inventive production activities.
Measuring the creative potential of a company or its degree of innovation is a daunting task. Other-
wise, providing an evaluation of its inventive capacities appears more reasonable. It is further necess-
ary that the companies themselves, their R & D departments, engineers and scientists, implement
innovative projects, objectively and intentionally innovative-oriented. But our research shows the dif-
ficulties of companies to clearly develop innovative projects. The lack of readability of innovative pro-
jects (blurred boundaries between projects, lack of practices and methods specifically dedicated to
IPs) is at the origin of this issue. To remedy this, it is necessary to work upstream on the same
design innovation training among engineering schools, before considering to measure the effects
on project design or to develop indicators of inventive efficiency of R&D teams. Lastly, it is necessary
to develop inventiveness skill among student engineers, who will make up the R&D staff of the future.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID
Charlyne Millet http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0243-3331
David Oget http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8539-0225
Denis Cavallucci http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1815-5601

Notes on contributors
Dr Charlyne Millet is currently researcher and teacher assistant in Sciences of Education at the University Institute of Tech-
nology, Social Career Department, Le Havre University (France). She conducted a postdoctoral research at the Design
Engineering Laboratory, INSA, Graduate School for Engineers and Architects, Strasbourg (France). One of her research
domain includes education and work activity (e.g. researchers and engineers).
Dr David Oget is currently associate professor in Sciences of Education at the INSA, Graduate School for Engineers and
Architects (France), and researcher in the Design Engineering Laboratory. His research activities include, among others,
engineering design education, engineering management and methodological tutoring in engineering schools.
Pr Denis Cavallucci is currently full professor at the INSA, Graduate School of for Engineers and Architects (France), and
deputy director of the Design Engineering Laboratory. He started his teaching and research activities in design methods
and theories in 1988. He is also co-founder and first president of TRIZ-France association, co-founder and past president
of ETRIA (European TRIz Association).

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Appendix. Questionnaire (paper version)

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