How creativity can help research on the multiple values of nature become more innovative and inclusive

1. The global environmental situation presents humans with challenges of unprecedented complexity, and research into the multiple values of nature aims to inform decision- making in the context of this complexity.


| INTRODUC TI ON
The global environmental situation presents humans with challenges of unprecedented complexity. It introduces unique, and uniquely thorny, moral conundrums (Gottlieb, 2019). Responses to this complex situation depend heavily on knowledge and scholarly understanding, which is constantly evolving. This paper is motivated by a simple argument: The challenges we face are novel, massive and wickedly complex, and this means that we almost certainly need novel approaches to address them. Almost by definition, creativity is a primary way we can move towards those novel approaches.
These new approaches can then lead to and be part of the societal transformations that are, according to many scholars, necessary (Haxeltine et al., 2018;Loorbach et al., 2017).
Scholars have identified many of the thorny problems that populate the environmental field as 'wicked problems' (Turnpenny et al., 2009). Wicked problems cannot be defined in one way, have no right and wrong answers, and lack clear causes and effects range from urban development (Unnikrishnan & Nagendra, 2015) to marine-protected-area planning (Jobstvogt et al., 2014), and contexts include both specific decision-making situations and descriptive studies with no direct connection to decision-making .
Creativity, as used in this paper and many others, involves the intersection of 'novelty and utility' (Szostak, 2017). Specifically, creativity is 'the ability to produce ideas or products that are both original and adapted to the context and constraints of specific tasks (Sternberg & Lubart, 1999)' (Darbellay et al., 2017, p. xvi;citation original). More simply, 'creativity is defined as the production of original and useful ideas' (Januchowski-Hartley et al., 2018). For MVN research, this means that creativity can help people to develop new forms of valuation that are useful within valuation contexts-either existing or potential future valuation contexts, including contexts that stem from creative endeavours. Also important for MVN research, with its global focus and attention to cultural variation, is that the concept of creativity may be interpreted and assessed differently in different cultures. In particular, some cultures may more strongly emphasize the novelty aspect of creativity, whereas others may more strongly emphasize the utility aspect (Lu et al., 2019).

| Why focus on creativity?
Creativity is one constructive way to confront wicked problems and closely associated crises. Much discussion, both academic and otherwise, suggests that we need to enlist ingenuity and creativity to successfully confront the wicked problems that characterize our environmental challenges (Chapman, 2015;Palmer et al., 2009). More specifically, scholars have identified the potential of creativity to deal with the 'seemingly intractable' problems inherent in conservation work (Aslan et al., 2014). More broadly, research beyond the environmental field identifies the need for creativity in managing crises because 'by definition, crisis conditions present unforeseen or unmet challenges that can only be addressed by innovative responses' (Pearson & Sommer, 2011). As the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath unfold around us, we are increasingly surrounded by challenges that are unmet, although not entirely unforeseen. It is not hard to argue that we will only address them effectively if we are wildly innovative.
In 2012, artist Austin Kleon wrote Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative. This book provided foundational inspiration for this paper because it presents creativity as highly relevant to many pursuits-including research-and offers suggestions that, although written for artists, apply astoundingly well to scholarly research. (Important to note up front is that Kleon uses 'steal' playfully yet carefully; his version of 'stealing' involves respect, careful study and honouring others (see Figure 1). Kleon fully recognizes the wide applicability of his message; on the first page, he writes: 'These words apply to anyone who's trying to inject some creativity into their life and their work. (That should describe all of us.)' (Kleon, 2012).
A second source of foundational inspiration for this paper is design thinking. Design thinking is 'a methodology for creative problem solving' (Stanford d.school, 2020). When defined in this way, design thinking intertwines with creativity (Szostak, 2017). The primary purpose of design thinking is to address problems-any kind of problem, including our planet's wicked problems. The Stanford d.school, also known as the Hasso Platner Institute of Design, and the design firm IDEO played central roles in bringing design thinking to its current prominence. Although the term design thinking arose in association with those two institutions in California's Silicon Valley in the 1970s and 1980s, the concept 'has deep roots in a global conversation that has been unfolding for decades' (IDEO, 2020). An important part of that global conversation was the idea of wicked problems: Early in the formulation of the concept of wicked problems, scholars suggested that confronting such problems requires intentional design (Buchanan, 1992;Rittel & Webber, 1973). In other words, design thinking, which has creativity at its core, has been proposed as a primary way to address thorny, wicked problems for decades.
Despite the promise of creativity for addressing environmental problems, much MVN research uses only established approaches.
The strand of MVN research that addresses cultural ecosystem services serves as an example of the tendency towards a certain set of methods. Although this work, in aggregate, employs a variety of measurement tactics (e.g. primary and secondary data; quantitative and qualitative methods; stakeholder-based and non-stakeholderbased approaches; and a variety of novel methods; Hernandez- Morcillo et al., 2013 and  Another way of portraying the reason to employ creativity in the MVN space is that academia is perhaps uniquely poised to address some of the society's most difficult challenges by being visionary and daring. Other major sectors of society experience substantial constraints on trying new things: For instance, most governments must constantly consider public approval, industry must turn a profit, and non-governmental organizations often must appease funders. It is arguably academia's job to wield the power of ideas to try to forge new paths through the complexity. In many cases, academics have more leeway than those in other sectors to do this (Luby, 2018).
Although some scholars describe academics' freedom and potential for big thinking, scholarship that addresses creativity in academia identifies multiple ways that academic structures and realities constrain innovation and risk-taking (i.e. creativity). Over 30 years ago, Loehle (1990) noted multiple pressures and barriers that impede scholars' creative thinking: disciplinary structures; the short-term, outcome-oriented nature of funding; and schedules that leave scant time for the 'arcane and almost lost art that today we would label thinking' (p. 127, emphasis original). More recently, Ness (2015) describes how researchers face a 'creativity crisis;' she cites reasons similar to Loehle's and adds concerns about promotion and tenure. Scholars are increasingly hesitant to engage in creative and outside-the-box (and therefore risky) research despite its likelihood of leading to innovation because, as a reviewer of Ness's book notes, 'predictability is prized over boldness' (Voosen, 2015).

| S TR ATEG IE S FOR HOW TO B E CRE ATIVE IN MVN RE S E ARCH
As the core of this paper, I offer six strategies drawn from research on creativity (Table 1). The strategies were informed by interdisciplinary literature on creativity, especially the academic book Creativity in Research (Ulibarri et al., 2019) and Kleon's popular press book about creativity in general (Kleon, 2012).

| Details from the creativity literature
Careful problem definition is a core step in fostering creativity in research (Chapman, 2015;Loehle, 1990;Szostak, 2017). If we omit this step, there is a danger that we may become enmeshed in details too quickly and thus not fully understand the context or what we aim to accomplish. As Ulibarri et al. (2019) note, 'Albert Einstein-someone considered to have been a fairly creative person-is apocryphally quoted as saying: "If I had only one hour to save the world, I would spend fifty-five minutes defining the problem, and only five minutes finding the solution." Even if he didn't say it, it's worthwhile advice to heed' (p. 75).
One aspect of defining a problem is recognizing that there are often multiple ways to portray the problem at hand; this is a core characteristic of wicked problems (Rittel & Webber, 1973). The goal of defining a problem is thus not necessarily to drill down to the 'correct' problem. There may be no such thing, especially with issues as complex as the values of nature. Research problems can be seen as components of the larger wicked problems that research is trying to resolve. Like the larger wicked problems, the research problem likely has no definitive formulation.
Yet clearly identifying a problem can be helpful even if there is no one definitive formulation. One helpful aspect of problem definition is that it allows you to unveil and specify assumptions. In other words, an important part of a problem's formulation is a list of assumptions that underlie the problem. Once you identify those assumptions, you can then evaluate whether or not they are valid (Ulibarri et al., 2019).
In some cases, you may realize that your assumptions were faulty.  Table 4 and this strategy's 'Suggestions' list)

Don't use only words • '
Step away from the screen:' Use non-digital methods, especially when in idea-generation mode • Activate and access new regions of your brain via non-verbal modes of expression In many cases, you will uphold the assumptions as true. In this case, making them explicit can enrich how you approach the problem.

| Relevance for MVN research
Reflecting on the problems that MVN research aims to solve can lead to realizations about the nature of the task that motivates this research and the assumptions that may implicitly underlie the field.
Problem framing encourages researchers to consider: Why is recognizing diverse value in policy so difficult? What are the hurdles (problems) that make that goal difficult to reach?
To demonstrate how a focus on problem definition may be helpful, I offer three possibilities of fundamental problems that MVN research aims to confront (Table 2). These problems intend to start a conversation; they embrace the literature's message that there is no one 'correct' problem formulation. Readers may disagree with these exact problems or how I have described them. And other problems-some of them likely equally fundamental-surely exist.
Refinement of the problems MVN research needs to address could be the subject of another paper, and the difficulty of that exercise demonstrates how following this strategy can help MVN research to question assumptions and make sure we are 'addressing the right problem.'

| Suggestions for MVN research
1. Take a step back to determine what problem your research is trying to solve. Is it one of the three problems in Table 2 Certain kinds of value receive disproportionate formal attention in decisionmaking spheres. The concepts used in and the structure of valuation processes influence the values (and the types of value) that are considered in that valuation (Jax et al., 2013). This problem intertwines with the fact that, in many cases, values are not 'out there' waiting to be measured but are formed through social interaction such as deliberation . One scholarly treatment of this issue centres around valuearticulating institutions (Vatn, 2009) and recognizes that 'valuation methods operate as value articulating institutions, which influence value formation and co-determine value themselves' (Himes & Muraca, 2018) How can we increase the representation of diverse (multiple) values of nature (and who is 'we')?
Tension between data needs of decision-making and ways we know how to represent many values of nature The MVN field faces a fundamental tension: That between requests to characterize MVN in particular ways (e.g. quantitatively), and core features of MVN (e.g. that many are difficult to represent quantitatively). An oftenrepeated request for ways to characterize MVN is that techniques must be implementable with scarce resources and thus must require no or minimal new data collection, or data collection that is not time-intensive. This requirement, however, clashes with two characteristics of many values of nature: They are place-specific (which challenges universalism and related 'efficiencies') and highly complex (not lending themselves easily to unidimensional representation). In the past century, many scholarly fields have addressed issues related to MVN; one perspective on recent MVN research is that it aims to make this extensive work more immediately applicable to decision-making, partly through transdisciplinary approaches. This effort will likely only succeed if the tension named here is addressed How can we address the tension between requests for particular ways to characterize MVN and the features of MVN, with constant attention to how 'decision-ready' metrics may miss crucial insights (e.g. Nahuelhual et al., 2016)?

Pluralism is both an opportunity and a challenge
Arguably, the central call in the MVN literature is for pluralistic approaches to valuation. Pluralistic approaches offer many crucial benefits, including attention to diverse ways of knowing that seems difficult to achieve in any other way. Yet pluralism also presents challenges. Some see the incommensurability that often characterizes pluralistic valuation as its Achilles' heel (Centemeri, 2015). Relatedly, valuation processes that incorporate multiple types of value will likely be more complex than unidimensional valuation  Figure 1). His basic point is that 'every new idea is just a mashup or a remix of one or more previous ideas' (Kleon, 2012 (Kelley & Kelley, 2013). The strategy to be inspired by others' work, therefore, mindfully recognizes the power of building on others' good ideas. A common suggestion in the creativity literature is to be inspired by widely diverse sources. Rick Szostak (2017), in a chapter entitled 'Interdisciplinary research as a creative design process,' notes the importance of getting inspiration from unconventional sources: 'The interdisciplinary researcher should appreciate that locating the right set of literature-that is, connected but in a way that nobody has appreciated-is an important source of creative insights' (p. 22).

| Relevance for MVN research
Being inspired by others' work is fundamental to scholarship. For MVN research, this strategy emphasizes that contemporary scholars are not striking out alone to characterize why nature matters. They study, honour and build upon centuries of work on relationships between people and nature, and they integrate and develop these past approaches and ideas so they can more easily enter decision-making spheres. In addition to working with centuries of human-nature relationship research, MVN scholars also build on more recent research in the many fields that address MVN (Table 3).
They likely also can and should build on a wide array of other fields and experiences that may seem unrelated, but may offer nuggets of insight to MVN work. These may include sources outside of academic or research spheres (Koch, 2020 is openness to the possibility that seemingly unrelated avenues may yield insight: 'A discipline with only a tangential interest in the problem at hand may hold a critical insight into its solution' (Szostak, 2017).
People who respond creatively to crisis situations will, according to organizational scholars, adopt 'open-minded approaches, such as ferreting out bad news early and nurturing their own skepticism' (Pearson & Sommer, 2011). Organizational scholars' advice for creatively dealing with crises includes multiple points related to seeking out difference: 'Start with oblique perspectives and discuss them thoroughly; Stay open to diverse sources and exotic challenges; Don't get too comfortable with success' (Pearson & Sommer, 2011). Descriptions of exceptionally innovative thinkers report a specific action that nurtures scepticism: Many outsidethe-box thinkers seek out people with whom they know they disagree to be their closest colleagues-their trusted advisors and co-problem-solvers (Grant, 2017). Exceptionally innovative thinkers know that continuous thoughtful critique will strengthen their ideas.
There are potential complications with seeking out scepticism; perhaps the most notable relates to power differentials. Certain fields, and the paradigms that underlie them, dominate in aca-  Table 4). The idea behind these questions is not Use various proxies for CES, for example, moorings in harbours; entries in citizen-science databases Allan et al. (2015) Co-create, with Indigenous community representatives, a measure for a river's 'spiritual quality' that includes the river's sound, appearance, smell and feel, for example, sounds of water and birdsong, visible currents and pooling that align with seasons, and wadeability Satterfield et al. (2013) Record semi-permanent 'manifestations' of CES in landscape, for example, benches, trail signs [Note: Evidence of 'tending' could be seen as a manifestation of RV; these were framed as about CES] Bieling and Plieninger (2013) Record impermanent manifestations of CES, for example, ceremony remnants Unnikrishnan and Nagendra (2015) Analyse stories written about a place Bieling (

| Details from the creativity literature
That the creative person's workspace as an explosion of drawings, large and small, diagrams on black-or whiteboards, sticky-note agglomerations, and magazine cut-outs, may be a stereotype. If so, it is for a good reason: Using forms of expression in addition to words allows us to think and convey things that words have trouble capturing.
Nested within this theme is another strategy for creativity: In Kleon's words, 'Step away from the screen' (Kleon, 2012). Computers encourage all but the most graphical-design-software-adept humans to think and express themselves in words; after all, Kleon notes, firstgeneration computers were called 'word processors.' Kleon emphasizes his point by quoting John Cleese: 'We don't know where we get our ideas from. What we do know is that we do not get them from our laptops' (Kleon, 2012). Kleon recommends having two workspaces: one analogue and one digital. The analogue space is for generating ideas, and the digital one is for refining them. Creating visualizations can be an important part of the creative process-and a part that benefits hugely from stepping away from the screen. Drawing and using physical objects engage different parts of our brain than does language-focused writing (Ulibarri et al., 2019). Szostak (2017) points out that a hallmark of creative approaches is that they combine conscious and subconscious processes. He writes: 'Creative insights generally emerge in the form of imagery: We picture our creative solution in some way (Spooner, 2004), likely because our subconscious operates sublingually' (p. 23).
Diagramming, drawing or making a physical model of research ideas thus can yield new insight (Ulibarri et al., 2019). Of course, visualizations can also be powerful ways to communicate research findings; Edward Tufte's famous work in this regard provides scores of examples of the potential power of visualizations (Tufte, 2001;Tufte et al., 1998).

| Relevance for MVN research
MVN research can apply this strategy in at least three ways: To the process for developing methods for understanding MVN, to the methods themselves, and to how results and conclusions are shared.

First, researchers can use non-verbal techniques to develop ways
to characterize MVN. The discussion above centres on this processbased point-on the idea of using visualizations to encourage a creative research process.
Second, this strategy provides inspiration to think about nonword-focused ways of exploring MVN. Much MVN research uses words to convey and representing meaning, for example, through interviews, surveys, stories, and text-based social media posts.
Yet past MVN research also provides numerous excellent examples of non-verbal methods. Some of the entries in Table 3 fall into this category. Many values researchers have used photographs (from, for example, social media or historical archives).
Others have used songs, poetry and 'manifestations' in the landscape to characterize MVN (Table 3). In addition to examples in 3. Reflect on your work from a less-verbal, screen-free perspective: Diagram different aspects of your MVN research. You could draw the primary viewpoints you wish your research to explore or the steps you will take to analyse the data. You could pictorially convey how your research draws on theory or represent the process by which decision-makers interact with your work.

| Details from the creativity literature
Quick, dynamic iteration is a pillar of design thinking, and one of the most repeated tenets of design thinking is to 'fail early, fail often' (Ulibarri et al., 2019). These two points are integrally related. The perhaps counterintuitive pro-failure statement aims to encourage experimentation, risk-taking, early sharing and the willingness to let go of ideas that are not working. As Aslan et al. (2014) write, 'an experimental prototyping approach allows failing ideas to be reworked or pruned judiciously [i.e. "failing often to succeed sooner" (Catmull, 2008)]' (p. 348, citation original). The core idea is that if we are willing to share our ideas early on, we can figure out if an idea is worth developing before investing extensive time into it. We can get feedback and make tweaks-including 'pruning' features or possibly entire approachesthen iterate with a new and improved version. In aggregate, this process allows us to produce more ideas and more better ideas, which increases the chances that one of them is really powerful.

| Relevance for MVN research
Current valuation mechanisms have many shortcomings, and it is arguably an important task for academics to critique those current mechanisms. Creativity research argues that in addition to critiquing, we should also be 'making things' by offering alternative tools, approaches or scenarios for valuation. This is likely particularly important for areas rife with critique and debate; they may have the most space for improvement and new ideas (Loehle, 1990).
In design work, offering innovative options is often called 'prototyping': Creating a version of a 'product' (in research, this would be an idea, approach, method, etc.) and trying it out to see how it goes.
One way of interpreting innovative efforts at valuation (e.g. a placebased approach to represent value in a novel way) is that they are prototypes: Researchers trying something and sharing its benefits and drawbacks. 3. In transdisciplinary work, connect with partners who may use research results to share ideas for data collection methods at an early stage-when the ideas are not yet fully formed. Consistent with approaches to knowledge co-production (Miller & Wyborn, 2018; see strategy below), get feedback and co-design data collection mechanisms with those who may use them.

| Details from the creativity literature
This final strategy intertwines with the previous strategies.
Collaboration figures prominently in most descriptions of creative approaches. Organizational scholars list the need to 'get comfortable with broad collaboration' as one of the central practices of creatively dealing with crises (Pearson & Sommer, 2011). Kleon reminds us that 'geography is no longer our master,' and encourages us to create a professional community based on interests. Ulibarri et al. (2019) list teamwork as one of the core conditions that foster creativity. They note that 'while society tends to laud the individual creative geniusthe writer, the painter, the entrepreneur-creativity is a sociocultural process, and most great works and innovative breakthroughs are the result of a team' (p. 120).
In the realm of research specifically, teamwork-and particularly work with diverse teams-is probably the most foundational strategy for creativity. Research demonstrates that diverse teams offer multiple benefits; foremost among those benefits is that more diverse teams develop more innovative solutions (Page, 2008(Page, , 2017. Teams are more likely than individuals to develop new ways of solving problems (Moirano et al., 2020). In a connection to the strategies related to the importance of defining problems and naming assumptions,  Co-production is often considered the lynchpin for making research relevant to global challenges (van der Hel, 2016). Although co-production has roots in multiple divergent fields and multiple meanings, at its core it denotes a joint creation of knowledge by researchers and non-researchers (Miller & Wyborn, 2018). Scholars in the health field highlight the transformative potential of coproduction; they suggest that it can be 'a generative process that produces new interactions and forms of knowledge and that can lead in turn to meaningful ways of shaping and taking part in health care' (Filipe et al., 2017). If, for the purposes of this paper, we replace 'health care' with 'MVN research,' then this sentence captures the core of how embracing transdisciplinary teams can foster creativity and generativity-through 'new interactions and forms of knowledge.'

| Relevance for MVN research
The teamwork strategy is particularly appropriate for the types of grand challenge that MVN research aims to address. It is very clear that one person alone will be unable to address all of the issues that confront our planet, so we need to work together. We need all hands on deck, and we need all brains and viewpoints on the issues.
Most research on MVN already draws on the power of collaboration; this strategy can serve as a reminder to continue, and perhaps continue to expand, that practice.
Despite their myriad benefits, team-based processes also have shortcomings, particularly as related to power dynamics. An extensive body of research from multiple disciplines details the complex concerns of power that infuse collaborative processes, and environment-focused scholars have synthesized this work and highlighted its particular relevance for environmental management and valuation (Jacobs et al., 2016;Turnhout et al., 2020). This work suggests the importance of 're-politicizing' collaborative, and particularly co-production, processes by allowing pluralism and competing views (Turnhout et al., 2020).

| CON CLUS ION
In this paper, I argue that using strategies discussed in scholarship on creativity can render MVN research more innovative, inclusive, robust and potentially transformative. Yet this call for creativity in MVN research requires important caveats. One caveat is that making progress on complex issues requires a mix of novel, radical approaches and traditional, existing approaches. In other words, research on MVN cannot only be creative and innovative; it must also work with our current realities. A related caveat is that the effectiveness of creativity in facilitating a broader array of values to enter the discussion is only one aspect of a complex system. Creating new ways to characterize and incorporate values does not mean that decision-making will necessarily include a more inclusive suite of values. One crucial factor that will impact 'uptake' of new approaches to valuation is power dynamics, which may silence or obscure certain viewpoints (Rawluk et al., 2019). Another factor, one often deeply intertwined with power dynamics, is whether decision-making structures allow diverse forms of value representation.
Importantly, these factors (and values themselves) are not independent; evidence increasingly demonstrates that methods for characterizing value, values themselves, power dynamics and decision-making structures are not entirely separate (Kenter et al., 2019 A final point revisits the distinction between divergent and convergent thinking. The full creative process is not only about zany ideas and thinking without boundaries. Creativity involves both divergent and convergent thinking (Ulibarri et al., 2019), also called lateral and critical thinking (Newman-Storen, 2014). Creativity, again, involves both novelty and utility; it requires making new connections and generating something new, but also applying discernment to refine ideas so that they are useful. Ulibarri et al. (2019) discuss 'the interplay between the imaginative, lateral thinking that goes into developing a good research question and the rigorous analysis necessary to test that question' (p. 10). This is a core practice of academia: generating new ideas, then subjecting them to rigorous criticism and testing. In many ways, this paper is a reminder for the MVN field of the first aspect of our pursuit; it is a call to not short-change the creative, think-outside-the-box side of that process. A combination of broad, expansive thinking and refined, targeted thinking can create a rich suite of approaches that can move the world further towards incorporating the multiple values of nature into decision-making and addressing the wicked problems that face our planet.

ACK N OWLED G EM ENTS
I am deeply indebted to the colleagues with whom I have discussed these issues-on walks, over meals, on bus rides, on plasma screens.
In the spirit of embracing teamwork, many people have impacted these thoughts. The danger of naming people specifically is that I am very likely to forget someone important, so I apologize in advance.

CO N FLI C T O F I NTE R E S T
I am an Associate Editor for People and Nature, but I was not involved in the peer review and decision-making process for this paper.

DATA AVA I L A B I L I T Y S TAT E M E N T
This manuscript does not draw on any data.