**Abstract Deadline extended to 15 August 2009**

This year, the EU celebrates the 'European Year of Creativity and Innovation', aiming to 'raise awareness of the importance of creativity and innovation for personal, social and economic development'. Innovation in healthcare and scientific research is a recognised approach, dating back 20 or 30 years (Greer 1977, Kline and Rosenberg 1986): to innovate is at the core of research progression in these fields. In the arts and humanities, however, although 'innovation' has long been a fruitful topic of study (Crane 1976, Carroll 1993, Wijnberg and Gemser 2000), it has yet to take its place within an established methodological framework. To what extent, then, is the model of innovation and enterprise an effective structure for approaching research in the arts, performing arts, and humanities? How must research students in these fields learn to think in order to operate in a global society increasingly concerned with the valuation of ideas? Such questions are being widely considered in the UK and abroad, and we are currently seeking proposals for papers that address—in its broadest sense—the notion of innovation and enterprise in the arts and humanities.

PLENARY SPEAKERS INCLUDE:
Professor Mick Wallis, Professor of Performance and Culture (Leeds)
Dr Clare Howard, FRSA, Managing Director of Academy28 and Clare Howard Consultants
David Bulmer, White Rose Enterprise Zone

Proposals for 20-minute presentations are invited from research students in any area of the arts, performing arts, and humanities. Papers might highlight a specific innovative statement of methodology in your present research, or consider the wider implications of thinking creatively through a research-linked business model.

Possible topics might include:
* statements of innovation in cultural artifacts
* borderlands of innovation: Romantic/Modern, High/Low, Commercial/Academic
* theories of innovation (Richard Florida, Harold Bloom, Deleuze & Guattari)
* interdisciplinarity as a means to enable research innovation
* teaching and learning innovation
* bringing new life to an established research topic
* innovative technology (Web 2.0, Wikis, etc.) in research environments
* popular approaches to creativity (Julia Cameron, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi)
* thinking beyond and outside academia; making the most of your research in 'the outside world'

Please submit abstracts of approximately 250 words by 15 August 2009 to:
innovationconference@me.com