Imagination Institute

What Imagination Institute does

The Imagination Institute is an independent non-profit research organization based in Philadelphia and embedded within the University of Pennsylvania's Positive Psychology Center, established in 2014 with primary funding from the John Templeton Foundation. Its mission is to advance the measurement, growth, and improvement of imagination across all sectors of society. The institute's core work product is the Imagination Quotient (ImQ) framework, a set of psychological and neuroscientific assessment instruments designed to quantify imagination capacity, developed and validated through an external grants program.

The institute's business model is grant-funded philanthropy rather than commercial revenue: it awards roughly $3 million across 16 academic institutions, hosts cross-domain Imagination Retreats (Psychology, Neuroscience, Music, Comedy, Education, Spirituality, Physics, Leadership, Futurist, Engineering & Applied Mathematics), and convenes educator summits such as the 2016 Grit+Imagination event with Relay Graduate School of Education and Character Lab. Its audience spans academic researchers, K-12 educators, and the broader public, reached through academic publications, the Scientific American 'Beautiful Minds' blog, and The Psychology Podcast. There are no commercial products, paid services, or pricing tiers, and no proprietary technology platform; distribution is through open-access journals, free events, and media.

Name

Imagination Institute

Legal name

The Imagination Institute

Website

https://imagination-institute.org

Company type

Private

Founded year

2015

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Independent Philadelphia-based non-profit research institute, embedded at the University of Pennsylvania's Positive Psychology Center, that funds and conducts scientific research on imagination measurement, including the Imagination Quotient framework, for academic researchers, educators, and the general public.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Psychology Research

NAICS

Research and Development in the Social Sciences and Humanities (54172)

SIC

Services-Commercial Physical & Biological Research (8731)

akta.pro primary industry

Innovation & Design Thinking Programs (EDAMAHAD)

akta.pro secondary industry

Creativity & Innovation Mindset (EDABAMAH)

Keywords

• Imagination research
• Creativity science
• Academic grants program
• Psychological assessment tools
• Non-profit research institute

Headquarters

HQ city

Jenkintown

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Others, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Technology or R&D

Revenue model

1. Foundation Grants: The Imagination Institute is funded primarily by the John Templeton Foundation, which supports its grant programs, research initiatives, retreats, and summits. The institute awards nearly $3 million in grants to researchers at 16 institutions.

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels4 records

Core offering

The Imagination Institute is an independent non-profit that advances the science of imagination through a grants competition that funds researchers at multiple universities, a portfolio of Imagination Retreats convened across domains such as psychology, neuroscience, music, comedy, education, and physics, and summits that bring together researchers and educators. Its work is supported primarily by the John Templeton Foundation and operates out of the University of Pennsylvania's Positive Psychology Center in Philadelphia.

Product overview

The Imagination Institute is a non-profit research organization (not a technology product company) dedicated to the measurement, growth, and improvement of imagination. Its offerings consist of research grant programs, academic retreats, an annual summit, publications, and educational resources rather than commercial software products or technology platforms.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Advancing the Science of Imagination Grants Competition A grants competition funded by the Imagination Institute to test, validate, and develop interventions for imagination and perspective, awarding nearly $3 million to researchers at 16 institutions. It is aimed at university researchers and academic institutions conducting scientific research on imagination and creativity.
• Imagination Retreats A series of convened events hosted by the institute that bring researchers together with notable imaginative and creative individuals in academic, cultural, and organizational domains to refine understanding of the domain specificity of imagination and shape future funding. They are aimed at researchers, creative practitioners, and academics.
• Grit+Imagination Educator Summit An educator summit co-hosted with Relay Graduate School of Education and Character Lab in 2016 that brought together over 150 educators and leading researchers to translate research on grit and imagination into classroom practice. It targets K-12 educators and education administrators.

Quantifiable outcome

• Nearly $3 million awarded to 16 institutions for imagination research
• +1 more outcomes

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Partnerships

Three partnerships are on record, tiered co-host and core/host institution.

• Relay Graduate School of Educationco-hostStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2016Co-hosted the 2016 Grit+Imagination: An Educator Summit with the Imagination Institute and Character Lab, focusing on the intersection of grit and imagination in educational settings.
• Character Labco-hostStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2016Co-hosted the 2016 Grit+Imagination: An Educator Summit with the Imagination Institute and Relay Graduate School of Education. Character Lab, co-founded by Angela Duckworth, focuses on character development research.
• University of Pennsylvania - Positive Psychology Centercore/host institutionStrategic or Co-development PartnerThe Imagination Institute is based within the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania. Executive Director Martin Seligman and Scientific Director Scott Barry Kaufman are faculty members at UPenn, and the institute operates as part of this academic research environment.

Scale indicators3 records

Recent moves5 records

Expansion highlights4 records

Others

• IDEO: IDEO is a global design and innovation consultancy that pioneered Design Thinking methodology and training programs. It is thematically adjacent because the Imagination Institute studies the science underlying design thinking and creativity, but IDEO operates as a for-profit consultancy rather than a research non-profit.
• John Templeton Foundation (as funder / agenda-setter): The John Templeton Foundation is the institute's primary funder and a major global philanthropic agenda-setter for research on imagination, creativity, and human flourishing. It is an adjacent ecosystem participant rather than a competitor; comparable organizations in the foundation's portfolio (e.g., other Templeton-funded research initiatives) form the institute's broader peer set.

Emerging players

• Relay Graduate School of Education: Relay GSE is a graduate school of education that co-hosted the 2016 Grit+Imagination Educator Summit with the Imagination Institute. It is an emerging peer because it translates character and imagination research into teacher preparation, addressing the same educator audience the institute's summits target, though at much larger operational scale.
• Creative Education Foundation: The Creative Education Foundation is a long-standing non-profit dedicated to creativity research, training, and the dissemination of creative problem-solving methods. It is an emerging peer because it targets an overlapping audience (educators, researchers, practitioners) and operates a research-grants and convening model similar to the Imagination Institute, though with a longer history and a different theoretical lineage (Torrance / CPS).
• Center for Curriculum Redesign: CCR is a non-profit that translates research on competencies (including creativity and imagination) into K-12 curriculum frameworks used by schools and ministries of education. It is an emerging peer because it focuses on the same research-to-practice translation the Imagination Institute pursues with educators, but emphasizes whole-curriculum redesign rather than imagination-specific measurement.

Broad incumbents

• Center for Creative Leadership: CCL is a long-established non-profit that develops leadership research, assessments, and training programs globally. It is a broad incumbent comparable because it operates in the same nonprofit research-to-practice model, focuses on creativity-related competencies, and serves educators and organizations seeking to develop human capability.
• Greater Good Science Center (UC Berkeley): Greater Good is a UC Berkeley-affiliated non-profit that funds and disseminates research on well-being, empathy, and creativity. It is comparable to the Imagination Institute in being a university-housed research-to-public non-profit, but it operates at larger scale and a broader thematic scope across the social sciences.
• Adobe Education Creativity Research Programs: Adobe's education programs fund and publish research on creativity in education, including the State of Create studies, and operate at much larger scale than the Imagination Institute. They are comparable because they target the same intersection of creativity measurement and educational practice, but from a corporate rather than non-profit research funding base.

Direct peers

• Character Lab: Character Lab is a non-profit co-founded by Angela Duckworth that translates research on character and grit into school-ready interventions. It is a direct peer because it co-hosted the 2016 Grit+Imagination Educator Summit with the Imagination Institute and serves the same researcher-educator audience with adjacent constructs (grit, character) where the institute focuses on imagination.
• University of Pennsylvania Positive Psychology Center: The Positive Psychology Center at UPenn is the institute's host institution and shares faculty (Seligman and Kaufman). It is a direct peer in that it conducts foundational research on positive psychology constructs and operates as a non-profit academic center, but on a larger and more established scale than the Imagination Institute.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat2 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/imagination-institute

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles7 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

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M&A

Investments

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Frequently asked questions about Imagination Institute