Reclaiming creativity in higher education:Towards a playful university

a playful universityIn contemporary higher education, the discourse of creativity has been co-opted by neoliberal logics that prioritise employability, skill acquisition, and economic growth, over academic ingenuity and human flourishing.Today, creativity is often framed as a pragmatic skillset for problem-solving, market-driven innovation, and career advancement rather than a fundamental playful mode of engagement with knowledge and the world (Hansen, 2019; Barnett & Bengtsen, 2020;Nrgrd, 2022).This paper argues that the playful university, which embodies playfulness in its philosophical, pedagogical, and principal foundations, offers a radical alternative to the instrumentalisation and commodification of creativity in higher education.