Students' engagement, functional imagination and curriculum design for creativity and innovation

The last decade marked substantial changes for higher education, such as the international rankings of universities, developments associated with internationalization and commercialization of educational services or the new emphasis on the concept of ‘student engagement’. However, the inherent contradictions implied by various and often opposite demands from universities tend to move the problem of learning experiences to tokenism and flawed representations of the state of facts. The overarching aim of this paper is to reflect on the results of one of the most extensive studies conducted on motivation for learning and students imaginations in relation with some of the most influential international developments in higher education for the last decade. Comparative data is used to operate an analysis of consequent implications on curriculum design for student engagement and sustainable learning environments. The aim of the paper is to open an alternative exploration of possibilities to designing curriculum capable to bring ‘creativity agenda’ from rhetoric to practice and engage actively students in sustainable learning.