Innovation is crucial for businesses, institutions and societies. New products, services and solutions spur economic growth, sustainable development and welfare. High-tech innovative solutions, developed by established organizations and start-ups, enable new and existing customers and users to create more sustainable futures. However, innovation processes also involve high degrees of uncertainty, and many innovations fail to live up to their potential.
The Innovation Management program teaches you how to best navigate the uncertainty and challenging trade-offs that are central to innovation, how to design innovative solutions to key societal, customer and business problems, and how to structure and lead innovation processes. In other words: how to make innovation decisions that successfully balance people, planet and profit.
Alongside the core of the program, students choose one of five tracks to specialize in:
Furthermore, the elective space enables students to tailor the program to their interests and future career wishes. Students can gain international experience or engage with the award-winning Innovation Space at TU/e. The graduation project (thesis) deepens students’ specific interests by solving a real-life problem, often at an external organization. Overall, you create a valuable and future-proof profile to work in a range of different innovation-related roles and fields.
The two-year Innovation Management master’s program contains the latest scientific theories, quantitative and qualitative tools and techniques that are needed to analyze innovation in context, to inform evidence-based decisions and to design innovative solutions to sustainability, societal and business problems using cutting-edge technology such as AI. Rooted in engineering and technology, this program highlights the role of innovation in the high-tech industry and for sustainable futures and societies. As a student, you will learn how to create and design lasting innovative and sustainable change in businesses and institutions while gaining knowledge on how to balance societal, environmental and economic aspects in your innovation decisions.
As an IM graduate, you will be a strong critical, conceptual and reflective thinker who can make decisions in uncertain conditions using creative, adaptive and responsible approaches.
The program lasts two years and consists of a solid base in innovation processes, sustainable change and methods and a specialization in one of the five tracks offered. Core aspects covered in the master’s program include:
