Research nodes and projects

Our four research nodes align with the priorities of RMIT’s Design and Creative Practice Enabling Impact Platform, the Social Change Enabling Impact Platform, and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Our four research nodes align with the priorities of RMIT’s Design and Creative Practice Enabling Impact Platform, the Social Change Enabling Impact Platform, and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Creative Education, STEM and the Learning Sciences

This node transforms teaching and learning by bringing critical transdisciplinary perspectives to bear on the intersections of creativity, design, STEM and the new learning sciences.

Sustainable Development Goal 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages

Sustainable Development Goal 4: Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all

Sustainable Development Goal 11: Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable

Node leader

Professor Amanda Berry (RMIT University)

Amanda Berry is a Professor of STEM Education and Deputy Dean (Research & Innovation) in the School of Education, RMIT University. Amanda has a distinguished international profile in science education and teacher education research, in particular, the ways in which educators’ knowledge is shaped and articulated through teacher preparation, beginning teaching and in-service learning. The main focus of Amanda’s research has been the development and application of methodologies and tools for capturing and representing the complex nature of teachers’ and teacher educators’ classroom practice.

Research Projects

#theSTEMproblem: Exploring Problem Based Learning in School-Based STEM Education

#theSTEMproblem positions teachers as co-researchers with a deep understanding of their school contexts to examine their practice within this context.

Creativity and Generative Technologies

This node focuses on transforming education through attention to AI and creativity in teaching and researching the creative mindsets that emerge alongside generative digital innovations.

Node leader

Associate Professor Danah Henriksen (Arizona State University)

Dr Danah Henriksen is an Associate Professor of Educational Leadership and Innovation at Arizona State University’s Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College. Her research focuses on creativity in education, intersecting with technology, well-being, and design. She has authored or edited four books, including the third edition of Explaining Creativity, and published extensively in peer-reviewed and practitioner journals. Her work has been presented at leading conferences, including the American Educational Research Association (AERA) and the Society of Information Technology in Teacher Education (SITE), where she has co-chaired the Creativity Special Interest Group. Dr. Henriksen has served multiple times as the creativity working group leader for EDUsummIT, a UNESCO-sponsored global consortium, and is an Associate Editor for journals such as Thinking Skills and Creativity and Education Policy Analysis Archives. She has guest-edited several special issues and serves on the editorial boards of multiple journals. An award-winning educator, she has developed and taught undergraduate, Master’s, and doctoral courses in areas such as educational psychology, leadership, design thinking, and research methods, across a range of modalities and contexts.

Research Projects

Young Creators’ Lab

The ACMI + RMIT Young Creators’ Lab celebrates digital developers aged 10–16 and invites them to showcase their projects at ACMI each year.

Creative Resilience and Wellbeing

This node focuses on strengthening education across the lifespan through a commitment to healthy communities, building resilience and fostering wellbeing through creative research and educational innovation.

Sustainable Development Goal 5: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls

Sustainable Development Goal 10: Reduce inequality within and among countries

Node leader

Professor Anna Hickey-Moody (RMIT University)

Anna Hickey-Moody is the Senior Academic Leadership Ireland Professor of Intersectional Humanities and Director of The Arts and Humanities Institute at Maynooth University. Trained in Theare Studies with Cultural Anthropology, anna worked with Restless Dance Theatre for many years both as a performer and teaching in community education contexts. Her PhD and first book theorised the political and aesthetic significance of creative work that is shaped by disability. Since the publication of Unimaginable Bodies in 2009, Anna has undertaken arts based ethnographic work in a range of contexts, exploring gender, sexuality, race and religion.

Research Projects

Sweet Enough

PhD candidate and artist Rose Agnew’s exhibition Sweet Enough considered sugar from a feminist perspective, examining its complex history, uses and roles.

For more and past projects from Creative Agency members, please visit our former website.

Acknowledgement of Country

RMIT University acknowledges the people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups of the eastern Kulin Nation on whose unceded lands we conduct the business of the University. RMIT University respectfully acknowledges their Ancestors and Elders, past and present. RMIT also acknowledges the Traditional Custodians and their Ancestors of the lands and waters across Australia where we conduct our business - Artwork 'Sentient' by Hollie Johnson, Gunaikurnai and Monero Ngarigo.

More information

Research nodes and projects