This paper presents the principles of active learning and the contents of a creativity course entitled: Creativity and Problem Solving. The main purpose of this course is to create a space to discuss, reflect and experiment with creativity, creative processes and creative tools of relevance for students of any speciality (60% will end as operational researchers) working with problem solving approaches. This course has run with big success since 1998 at the Technical University of Denmark. It started with very few students, now is a very popular course attracting many students from abroad. The selected themes, the methods and techniques, the structure of this course, the learning processes and the achieved results are presented. The results of student's and teacher's evaluations are also outlined. Finally some reflections, recommendations and conclusions are discussed.

This paper is focusing on the following question: What is Operational Research (OR)? We will show that there is not a single and simple answer. Epistemological assumptions and practical traditions define different types of OR. We have identified three: The technical or hard OR, the practical or soft OR, and the critical OR. Following a historical perspective we will present these three schools. Habermas' theory about the three cognitive interests will provide a framework to understand this development. Finally, some final remarks about the future of OR will be outlined.

This paper presents some modern and interdisciplinary concepts about creativity and creative processes specially related to problem solving. Central publications of Creativity-OR are briefly reviewed. Creative tools and approaches suitable to support OR work are also presented. Finally, the paper outlines the author's experiences using creative tools and approaches to: Facilitation of problem solving processes, strategy development in organisations, and design of optimisation systems for large scale and complex logistic systems.

In this paper we will document that real-life problem solving in complex situations demands both rational (scientific) and intuitive (artistic) thinking. First, the concepts of art and science will be discussed; differences and similarities will be enhanced. Thereafter the concept of group problem solving facilitation both as science and art will be presented. A case study related to examination’s planning will be discussed to illustrate the main concepts in practice. In addition, other cases studies will also be shortly presented.