Future STEAMpreneurs: Using Creative Ecosystems for Educating “Anti-Disciplinary Wrong-Thinking Strange-Makers”

The complex challenges of the world require a new set of skills from higher education graduates, basically defined as STEAM (science, technology, engineering, the arts, and mathematics) skills, with a specific focus on the ability to innovate and make an entrepreneurial change. The task is complex and challenging as the new skill set requires a review of both the composition of the competence framework and education methods while embedding the curriculum within local ecosystems, communities, and challenges. This paper aims to reveal the development of a new set of skills that transcend the traditional disciplines via the integration of art and creativity methods, as immersive, sensory, kinetic, experiential, and other nonconventional learning experiences while embedding the learning in local ecosystems. We apply an action-based research method, where 30 students participate in an intensive STEAM creativity and innovation management development week. As a result, we propose an extension of STEAM competencies with arts-inspired elements and prove the efficiency of art-inspired methods in ecosystem-embedded learning.