The “Creativity and Innovation in Lifelong Learning” conference, organized by Tempus Public Foundation on 28 April, 2009, in Budapest, was a great success. The event – one of the national highlight events of the European Year of Creativity and Innovation – presented concrete examples to show the about 250 participating pedagogues the actions offered by the EU’s Lifelong Learning Programme, the experiences obtained through international partnerships in education and training, and how all this contributes to the development of creativity and innovation. The national quality awards were also presented at the event, in recognition of the highest quality Comenius, Leonardo and Erasmus projects.

The key to success is continuous response to an ever changing environment, made possible by our creative resources. Education should be transformed so that young people can leave school with a creative and innovative way of thinking, enabling them to be resourceful in any situation in life. It is essential that everyone should have the opportunity to acquire key competences, as well as to keep the acquired skills constantly up-to-date. Since education is given such a prominent role in the development of creativity and innovation, it is not surprising that the key areas of the European Year of Creativity and Innovation coincide with the objectives of the Lifelong Learning Programme. Activities seeking to develop competences, to elaborate and implement overall lifelong learning strategies and to improve innovation skills and creativity are given priority in all actions.

The conference held on 28 April, supported by the European Commission and the Ministry of Education and Culture, presented concrete examples to show how Lifelong Learning Programme – or to be precise, the various projects it supports – contributes to the development of creativity and innovation at all levels of education. Based on their own personal and professional experiences, the representatives of the Comenius, Leonardo, Erasmus and Grundtvig projects helped to find answer to questions like what the purpose of art education is, what varied methods can be used to develop key competences, what the importance of “learning by doing” is, or how natural and technical sciences serve the development of active, innovative way of thinking.

In his speech, Gábor Galambos, president of the Tempus Public Foundation said, “The Lifelong Learning Programme is not the only tool to facilitate creativity and the development of innovative skills within education through cooperation, international exchange of experiences and learning from each other – but it is clearly a very significant tool which cannot be ignored and which we can rely on in order to achieve the objectives we have set."

The round-table held in the afternoon was also attended by engineer-inventor Ernő Rubik, ambassador of the European Year of Creativity and Innovation, who thought that creativity was a natural born, basic skill, enabling us to find new answers. The participants of the round-table emphasized that it should be of basic importance to retain children’s natural creativity, to prevent its repression, and then we would be bothered less by how to improve it. Since the way of learning may differ from child to child, the institution should be selected to match the child's personality, they agreed, and they also agreed that it was up to the teachers themselves, rather than the school’s institutional framework, whether children’s creativity can unfold.

„Creativity is not only new but also makes sense” – subjective professional opinions on creativity in school 
See the edited extract of the round-table discussion