Students enrolled in the course Technology and Innovation Management gets more than just a taste of innovation management when they apply course knowledge to case companie's real-life innovation - and they are doing it continuously on a large scale.
DTU Management Engineering attaches great importance to collaboration with industry and not only as a central part of many research projects, but also as an integrated part of department courses.
Learning how to manage innovation by working with companies in real-life
As a mandatory course for the students enrolled in the MSC programme Engineering Management, the course “Technology and Innovation Management” receives more than 120 students every year from various study programs. The course teaches the students to manage technological innovations in complex organizations.
To advance student learning, particularly in real managerial situations, the TIM course puts industrial relations to good use by asking groups of students to make a semester-long research project following innovation management in leading Danish companies.
In this way, the students are exposed to a variety of challenges within technological innovation. They are engaged in an active learning process preparing them for work challenges in the future, and they give useful recommendations to leading Danish companies.
" “It was a pleasure to interact with a bright team of students from TIM about how we do innovation at Novozymes, their questions gave new impulses”"
Frank Hatzack, Head of Innovation Development, Novozymes.
For instance students followed the innovation process of Widex A/S and diagnosed a potential problem of knowledge sharing at the R&D department, which seriously considered the students’ recommendation and implemented an organizational restructuring.
Mutual benefit
The relatively new concept is starting to produce results, not only in the form of better qualified candidates but also as concrete recommendations for industrial use, in innovative companies such as COMET People, Novo Nordisk, CEMEX, COMSOL, Delta A/S, Arup, Weltec, Dansk Bank (Mobile Pay app), Grundfoss, Widex, Akuart, and Novozymes. And when asked the collaborative companies agree that the course “Technology and Innovation Management” has both short term and long term value.
“It was a pleasure to interact with a bright team of students from TIM about how we do innovation at Novozymes, their questions gave new impulses”, says Frank Hatzack, Head of Innovation Development, Novozymes.
Another start-up company, Roiit, appreciated the inputs from the students, whose analysis and suggestions reshaped the strategy of the company.
A continuous effort
The staff involved in Technology and Innovation Management will continue the effort to expand collaboration with industries in new ways and create sustainable mutual benefits for the students, DTU education and research and the companies.
“We are very happy that the students actually learn a lot about managing innovation and that they often are able to integrate knowledge derived from other innovation related activities into this course. By the end of the semester, we see that most of them are more confident and competent mainly because they gained useful real life competences and made a real life different that is much appreciated by industry.” concludes main course responsible associate professor Jason Li-Ying.