Applied Creativity Labs®

IVE’s Applied Creativity Labs® (ACLs) give children and young people the creative behaviours and thinking skills to develop innovative solutions to real world challenges, in the classroom or via remote online delivery.

We deliver a wide range of themed Applied Creativity Lab programmes including: Climate & Environmental, Arts-based, Enterprise and Mental Health & Wellbeing.

Please choose from the themed list below for more details.

Read Tess Parker reports on the impact of Applied Creativity Labs (ACLs) on young people led by IVE’s Sarah Mumford here.

What's involved?

Applied Creativity Labs focus on real world challenges, such as air pollution, food sustainability, single-use plastic and waste reduction. Applied Creativity Labs are for children and young people in schools and/or youth groups.

What's the process?

We begin the process by presenting young people with an overview of what the ‘challenge’ is (ie. air pollution), we then deliver our bespoke creativity training and give them access to a resource-bank of ‘experts’ from industry, business and universities.

Young people then explore, develop, and refine their best original, applicable solutions to the challenge.

The groups prepare to pitch their best original, applicable solutions to the challenge to a panel, dragon’s den style. The best ideas are considered for further development.

When, where and how?

Online Delivery

An online lab is delivered over nine one-hour-long sessions. All participants need to be able to access the Labs via Zoom, whether in groups in class, or individually from home.

Classroom Delivery

A full lab includes 1 full initial day, up to 7 weekly hourly sessions and one final half day pitch event.

What's the impact?

By applying creativity to real-world challenges – such as air pollution in Leeds – learning becomes ‘real’ and young people take an active part in creating their own futures.

Applied Creativity Labs:

Help young people think divergently
Develop problem-solving skills
Help young people think freely and more creatively
Develop their resilience, confidence and independence
Develop their team work
Develop their ability to innovate
Develop their critical thinking skills
Develop their presentation skills.

ACL Themes

Being entrepreneurial is a skillset which is at the heart of every business. Our Enterprise ACL’s offer our participants the opportunity to design and create a product, then pitch it to a panel. Many of our young entrepreneurs have had their ideas scaled up into real-world products. In turn, this skill set transfers into the real world marketplace, after all business is sales and self-belief.

Team Building: is integral for successful ACL’s to be delivered. Participants work together, assess their market and co design products which answer a pre-set brief or real-world application.

Social parity: We are big believers in social parity and social equity at IVE. We have seen our participants set up successful micro businesses after completing their ACL courses, after gaining the confidence to believe in their product and having the confidence to sell it to an audience.

We care about our environment at IVE and actively engage with sustainable businesses to help reduce our carbon footprint. Our Environmental ACL’s involve us collaborating with organisations working to reduce the impact of climate change. Young people develop new, innovative products and/or creative social media/social action campaigns to help reduce carbon emissions. Applied Creativity Labs are educational, yet encourage young participants to help find solutions to real world climate challenges.

Effective Communication: Presentation skills enable individuals to express their thoughts, ideas, and opinions clearly and effectively. This leads to better understanding, collaboration, and cooperation among people, fostering stronger relationships and a more cohesive society.
Empowerment: By mastering the presentation skills, individuals gain the ability to advocate for themselves, articulate their needs, and actively participate in social and civic activities as well as increased confidence when interviewing for employment.

Our ACL’s promote good health and well-being by actively engaging our participants in our empowering workshops. Following engagement with mental health experts our beneficiaries see their confidence increased alongside, self-worth and a sense of achievement which shines through at our pitch events as they develop new ways to improve mental health, many of which they are able to then put into practice.

Social Cohesion: Team working helps foster understanding, empathy, and active listening, which are essential for building harmonious and inclusive communities. They help bridge gaps between different cultures, backgrounds, and perspectives, fostering dialogue, mutual respect, and reducing conflicts.
Public Speaking and Leadership: Our voice and knowing its value, is integral to public speaking and leadership. Effective public speakers can inspire and mobilize whilst communicating effectively to audience,.

We have strong links with creative practitioners, artists, arts institutions and creative thinkers. We at IVE recognise the expert entrepreneurial skills latent in many artists, for they: design, create then sell their products.

Our artists share their practice with our young participants; demystifying the process, whilst giving our participants the opportunity to also design, create and sell their artworks and products to the open market.

Effective Communication: Presentation skills enable individuals to express their thoughts, ideas, and opinions clearly and persuasively. This leads to better understanding, collaboration, and cooperation among people, fostering stronger relationships and a more cohesive society.
Empowerment: Individuals gain the ability to articulate for themselves; their needs, and actively participate in social and civic activities with a newly found voice along with increased confidence.