The Network Concept of Creativity and Talent Support
Peter Csermely
"Talents
often occupy a central but highly dynamic position in social networks.
Inter-community,
highly dynamic ‘creative nodes’ not only determine the systems
potential for fast adaptation, but
also serve as a ‘life insurance’ in crisis. Creative transitions are
promoted by an increased flexibility
(and learning potential) of the complex system. However, an increase in
system rigidity increases the
system’s optimization ability (and memory). Therefore, proper
networking strategies are key factors for both talented people
and their society to be successful. The efficiency of these processes
can be greatly expanded by talent support networks. As
an example, the Hungarian talent support network involves a thousand
Talent Points, 15 thousand teachers participating in
training sessions to discover and help talents, more than 200,000
people involved discovering 26 thousands of new talents
in 2 years. Europe has a huge talent reserve. A European Talent Support
Network is about to be developed, where European
Talent Support Centers act as hubs, European Talent Days are
celebrated, and cross-national cooperation is promoted. The
European Council of High Ability (celebrating its 25th
anniversary
in 2013) serves this process with the richness of talent
support traditions of all countries in Europe.
Peter Csermely is a professor of the Semmelweis University (Budapest, Hungary) studying networks and talent support (www.linkgroup.hu). In 1995 he established a research network for more than 10,000 gifted high school students. Together with Leon Lederman Nobel Laureate in 2000 he started the Network of Youth Excellence (www.nyex.info) fostering talent support collaboration of 13 countries. From 2006 he chairs the Hungarian National Talent Support Council running a talent support network for ~200,000 people (www.geniuszportal.hu) and starting a European network of talent support (www. talentcentrebudapest.eu). He became the president of the European Council of High Ability in 2012. He wrote and edited 15 books (including 5 talent-related books) and published 220 research papers with a total citation over 6,500. He was the member of the Wise Persons’ Council of the Hungarian President, an Ashoka, Fogarty, Howard Hughes and Rockefeller Fellow and received the 2004 Descartes Award of the European Union"