A team of researchers from BU’s National Centre for Computer Animation will soon be presenting ‘Dr Inventor’ at SIGGRAPH in California. Dr Inventor is the first web-based system that supports the development of scientific creativity via a computational approach.
The project stemmed from the idea that new technologies have real potential to increase scientific creativity and to overcome some human limitations. When considering ways around an issue, we often get stuck on the problem rather than solution and tend to be limited by our own perceptions, biases and memories. By harnessing the power of technology and existing research information available on the web, Dr Inventor overcomes some of these issues by acting as a personal research assistant.
Dr Inventor can provide researchers with a report of a variety of relevant concepts and approaches by drawing on information from web resources, allowing a researcher to take into account a much wider range of perspectives. The programme can even assess the quality and novelty of these resources by analysing these against recognised research approaches and established quality metrics.
Perhaps the most exciting aspect of Dr Inventor is its ability to replicate human creativity – to a degree – and suggest new research ideas. By trawling through huge amounts of resources and ideas, Dr Inventor can generate new concepts and angles for research.
The project was funded by the European Commission and has seen the team work with partners from all over Europe to develop the concept. For more information about the project, please visit project website (http://drinventor.eu)
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