The Design Creativity (DC) group focuses on understanding, supporting and empowering fundamental human capabilities and behavioral traits in the creative design of interactive artifacts and environments.
The DC group’s research addresses five main research dimensions:
- The human-AI creative collaboration dimension explores the utilization of generative AI as tools or means to enhance novelty, practicality, and surprise at the early stages of design.
- The empathic and cognitive design innovation research dimension concerns ideation (idea generation), an essential and undervalued aspect in today’s highly technological society. Ideation is the first step leading to creativity and innovation, critical to the success of digital solutions, artefacts, products, services, and systems.
- The rehabilitation technology and healthcare innovation research dimension explores the support of experiences of patients, designers of healthcare technology, healthcare providers, and other stakeholders in digital technology-enabled rehabilitation and activities of daily living (ADLs). The dimension encompasses a range of cognitive and/or physical conditions, such as post-stroke recovery, which pose an increased challenge for contemporary society.
- The neurocognition of design creativity research seeks to link ideation’s neurocognitive bases with design education, cognition, and collaborative design practices. Particular interest is in instructional practices and enhancing performance in the design process.
- The technology-enhanced learning and digital fabrication (digital materialization) research dimension concerns sustainability, performance, quantification, and trans-disciplinary integration of all stakeholders (other backgrounds, schoolers, local businesses/communities) in materializing and prototyping utilizing makerspaces.
Currently, DC group s responsible for identification and development of educational competences for wearables for rehabilitation in the EDUWEAR Erasmus+ KA Action project. Previously, in the PRIME-VR2 project funded by H2020 the DC group was responsible for the design and digital fabrication of controllers for VR-based rehabilitation.
People
Georgi V. Georgiev
Professor
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Scholar
Sohail Soomro
Postdoctoral researcher
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Scholar
Marta Cortés Orduña
Doctoral researcher
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Scholar
Roshan Fernando
Doctoral Researcher
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Ummi Latif
Doctoral researcher
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LinkedIn | Scholar
Mengru Wang
Doctoral researcher
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Chamudi Vidanagama
Research Assistant
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LinkedIn | GitHub
Projects
PRIME-VR2 – Personalised recovery through a multi-user environment VR for Rehabilitation (H2020)
Selected Publications
2025
Soomro, S.A., Haleem, H., Schneider, B., & Georgiev, G.V. (2025) Capturing Activities and Interactions in Makerspaces Using Monocular Computer Vision. IEEE Transactions on Learning Technologies, 18, 470–483. https://doi.org/10.1109/TLT.2025.3562298
Georgiev, G.V., Soomro, S.A., Balzan, E., Gauci, M.V., Buhagiar, N., Vella, P., Tamburrino, F., Neri, P., Aruanno, B., Wodehouse, A., Maclachlan, R., Hadjionisiforou, O., Kuivila, H., Kitkala-Murto, N., Mikkonen, K., & Farrugia, P., (2025). A comprehensive methodology to identify competence gaps in product and design engineering curricula, Proceedings of the International Conference on Engineering and Product Design Education (E&PDE 2025), Valletta, Malta, September 10-12, 2025
Nanjappan, V., Casakin, H., Soomro, S.A., & Georgiev, G.V., (2025). Effects of Functional Roles on Teamwork Quality and Performance in Digital Fabrication Education, Proceedings of the International Conference on Engineering and Product Design Education (E&PDE 2025), Valletta, Malta, September 10-12, 2025
Hu, X., Casakin, H., & Georgiev, G.V. (2025). Understanding VR-mediated empathy in design: Measurement approaches, inconsistencies and implications, Proceedings of the Design Society (ICED2025), Dallas, Texas, August 11-14, 2025
2024
Soomro, S.A., Nanjappan, V., Casakin, H., & Georgiev G.V. (2024) Fostering Technical Skills and Creativity in the Digital Fabrication Spaces: An Open-Ended Prototyping Approach, International Journal of Technology and Design Education, 1-22. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10798-024-09940-3
Georgiev, D.D., & Georgiev, G.V. (2024) Dynamic semantic networks for exploration of creative thinking. AI EDAM Artificial Intelligence for Engineering Design, Analysis and Manufacturing, 38, e12. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0890060424000180
Gong, Z., Gonçalves, M., Nanjappan, V., & Georgiev, G.V. (2024) Priming uncertainty avoidance values: Influence of virtual reality stimuli on design creativity in ideation. Computers in Human Behavior, 158, 108257. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2024.108257
2023