The project addresses the dynamics of novelties - a fundamental factor in the evolution of human societies, biological systems and technology- with the aim to unfold and quantify the underlying mechanisms through which creativity emerges and innovations diffuse, compete and stabilize. The project is timely due to the availability of extensive longitudinal records of human, social, biological and technological evolution. We shall exploit the unique opportunity offered by the combination of ICT tools for social computation with powerful analytical and modeling tools, by blending, in a unitary interdisciplinary effort, three main activities: web-based experiments, data science and theoretical modeling. Through this experimental, mathematical and computational framework we aim to provide the scientific community with a quantitative understanding of the determinants of creativity and innovation as well as a solid overarching scientific framework describing creativity in a quantitative and operational way.