Innovation is essential for the competitive position of companies. Through the development of desirable new products and services, innovation helps to win new customers and strengthens the loyalty of existing ones. Through the courage and perseverance of entrepreneurs, start-ups help address customer needs in entirely new ways. However, many new products and businesses fail or do not deliver the expected results because the competitive environment is dynamic and unstructured, which magnifies wrong managerial choices. The Innovation Management discipline studies the management of innovation processes and contains quantitative and qualitative theories, tools and techniques to make businesses and entrepreneurs more innovative as well as more successful in their innovation activities. Key aspects of the Innovation Management discipline are new product development, strategic marketing, sales and after-sales service management, business intelligence, open innovation, and entrepreneurship. The object of the studies is the new product and business development process. This includes the processes to cooperate with a diverse set of stakeholders and share knowledge with them.

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QUALITY EDUCATION The Master Innovation Management is a two-year, 120 ECTS program. The program is theory-driven and multi-disciplinary, with a project-focus on the firm's innovation process. As part of an Industrial Engineering school, the Innovation Management program focuses on the operational processes of innovation and emphasizes the ability to analyze and (re)design innovation processes for maximum effectiveness and efficiency. This focus sets us apart from other schools offering innovation programs like Erasmus University Rotterdam. The MSc IM program makes use of highly interactive lectures, assignments and group work, and the topics are related to state-of-the-art research of the school's professors.

SYSTEMATIC APPROACH The Master Innovation Management conveys scientific theories, tools and techniques to manage and improve innovations both within and across companies. You will learn how to apply the gathered knowledge in industrial applications. In other words, you will analyze the current innovative performance of a company, explain it in terms of quality, cost and time, and potentially improve this performance by re-engineering innovation processes. You will experience what it means to carry out research yourself, to gain new insights and to apply the acquired knowledge in many projects. This requires combining multi-disciplinary theoretical frameworks with quantitative (i.e., mathematical/statistical) or qualitative (i.e., interview/text-based) methodologies.

CAREER BOOSTER As a graduate of this Master’s degree program you will be well prepared for a broad range of positions and careers. For example, you could work as a product development manager in a production or service company, as a purchasing and inventory manager, as a strategy consultant, business developer, marketing manager, R&D manager, key account manager, business analyst, or as an alliance manager. Starting your own company or taking a career in research are also among the options. The tracks in the Innovation Management program are designed in such a way as to enhance your chances to find an exciting job in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as well as large, multinational companies such as Philips, Canon, ASML, Vanderlande, VDL, Unilever, DSM, etcetera.

Q1 (September-November) and Q3 (February-April) consist of core courses. All courses are 5 ECTS. In Q2 (November-January) and Q4 (May-June), students follow courses from a thematic track. Within their track 5 specialization electives are selected out of a list of 9. Each track also contains a restricted elective on design science methodology, which also includes application through a project. Innovation Management has two thematic tracks: “Business and Product Creation” and “Managing Innovation Processes”. The two tracks are structured around the concept of the innovation funnel. The first track focuses on the front end of the innovation funnel and entrepreneurs / start-ups that are in theses phases. The second track focuses on the back end of the funnel. Both tracks are described in more detail below.

Electives in the Business and Product Creation Track
in 2020/2021
(click course codes for more detailed information!)

Q2
1JM100		Management of organizational change and innovation
1ZM20		Technology entrepreneurship
1ZM120		Entrepreneurial marketing
0HM220		Network society
0EM160		Innovation and Intellectual Property Rights
Q4
1BM20		Business Analysis for Information Technology Systems
1ZM60		Selling new products
1ZM70		Entrepreneurial finance
1ZM90		Open innovation

Front-end of the innovation process, where individuals think about setting up their own business, and where established companies start the development of new and innovative products

Creative idea generation, opportunity identification, entrepreneurial actions, breakthrough projects, radically new products, exploration, new business models, start-ups

Product developer, innovation strategist, innovation manager, strategy consultant, business developer, business engineer, entrepreneur (CEO), project manager

Creativity, ability to cope with uncertainty, qualitative research skills

Larger innovation projects (in terms of budget) and decisions that managers have to make to move new products through the development stages and finally launch it on the market, including the monitoring and continuous improvement of product/service performance

Electives in the Managing Innovation Processes Track
in 2020/2021
(click course codes for more detailed information!)

Q2
1BM05		Business process management
1JM30		Managing team dynamics and team performance
1JM100		Management of organizational change and innovation
1ZM40		Strategy & technology management
1ZM55		Service innovation management
Q4
1JM21		Designing effective performance management systems
1CM15		Project and process management
1ZM60		Selling new products
0EM190		Infonomics

Marketing research, marketing strategy, process management, product lifecycle management, big data intelligence, sales and after-sales service management, product quality and reliability

Business analyst, marketing manager/consultant, key account manager, sales manager, service manager, manager R&D department, project manager, strategic buyer, purchasing and supply chain manager

Planning and optimization, systematic, quantitative research skills

Besides the two thematic tracks, a third track can be chosen by students pursuing a honors program or a dual degree. Using this third track as an honors option is open to the top 10% students and will generally result in a curriculum that exceeds 120 ECTS.

A dual degree contains a minimum of 165 ECTS and a maximum of 190 ECTS, and a thesis of 45 ECTS that features a topic on intersection of the two Master programs. Finally, two mentors, one from every Master program in the dual degree, will be involved. The minimum demands for the Innovation Management program are as follows: 6 core courses (30 ECTS), 4 track elective courses from any track (20 ECTS), 1 track design science project (5 ECTS), and the extended master thesis (45 ECTS).

Starting September 2020, a brand new Innovation Management and Data Engineering joint program is offered to Innovation Management students of Eindhoven University of Technology and Global Management of Innovation and Technology students of Lappeenranta-Lahti University of Technology (LUT), Finland. The program allows students to combine a broad Innovation Management core program with in-depth knowledge on data engineering topics such as intelligent product-service systems, computational data analytics, data-intensive software systems, user experience design, software engineering modeling, and digital business platforms.

To apply for a TU/e Master's program, you need a Bachelor’s degree based on a program of sufficient academic level and quality. Please find below several scenarios for enrollment and check which one applies to your situation.

• You have direct admission to the TU/e’s Innovation Management Master program if you have completed a Bachelor’s in Industrial Engineering and Management Science at Eindhoven University of Technology.
• Other TU/e Bachelors can enroll straightaway if they have chosen the "Innovation management for non-IE" coherent package in their bachelor curriculum (read here for more details).
• If you have completed a Bachelor's program a Dutch university (other than TU/e), the transfer matrix site (http://doorstroommatrix.nl/) provides a preliminary overview of programmes that may be considered as potential programs that could qualify for enrollment in the Innovation Management pre-master program. However, additional requirements apply, please see the “enrollment criteria for non-TU/e” below.
• If you have completed a Bachelor's program at a foreign university, please see the “enrollment criteria for non-TU/e” below. Because you will receive a two-year work permit, the master program should be completed within this time frame and your deficiency on enrollment can be max. 15 ECTS. This is determined by the admissions board (see below).
• If you have completed a Bachelor’s program at a Dutch HBO (university of Higher Professional Education, or University of Applied Sciences), this does not qualify you for direct admission to the Innovation Management Master program. You will first need to follow the entire 30 ECTS Innovation Management pre-master program (see the program on the right-hand side). Students of a range of HBO programmes may be admitted to the pre-master program Innovation Management. The transfer matrix site (http://doorstroommatrix.nl/) provides a preliminary overview of programmes that may be considered as potential pre-university programs that could qualify for enrollment in the Innovation Management pre-master program. However, additional requirements apply, please see the “enrollment criteria for non-TU/e” below.

Enrollment criteria for non-TU/e:
In order to be admitted to the Master program Innovation Management, you will be required to have the following academic background:

• A bachelor degree in business-related social sciences (e.g., business administration, marketing, organization science, communication science, entrepreneurship, psychology, sociology) with a minor (or electives) of at least 15 ECTS in an engineering domain (e.g., statistics, calculus, mathematics, programming, material science, electrical engineering, quantitative modeling, etc.).
• A bachelor degree in an engineering domain with a minor (or electives) of at least 20 ECTS in business-related social sciences (e.g., business administration, marketing, organization science, communication science, entrepreneurship, psychology, sociology).

More specifically, you should have gained knowledge in at least two (but preferably more) of the following six areas:

• New Product Development (e.g., new product key success factors, stage-gate approach and practicalities, fuzzy front end management, portfolio management, new product development control and performance metrics, development teams, market entry timing decisions, launch decisions)
• Marketing (e.g., strategic marketing planning, segmenting-targeting-positioning, marketing instruments, market research)
• Human Resource Management (e.g., individual differences and personnel selection, work performance, job analysis, and performance evaluation, work motivation, attitudes, emotions, stress, leadership)
• Modelling of Business and Information Technology Processes (e.g., data models, UML, business process model (notation), Petri nets, information systems life cycle models, business requirement analysis, analytics and decision support systems, SMART, heuristics, Bayes, Delphi)
• Statistics (e.g., continuous distributions. expected value, variance, Central Limit Theorem, discrete simultaneous distributions, covariance, correlation,  normally distributed variables, estimation theory (unbiased, mean squared error), confidence intervals (for mean, variance of a normal distribution and of a fraction), prediction intervals, hypothesis testing (type I and type II error, p-value, choice of sample size), multiple regression)
• Business Research Methodology (e.g., problem solving cycle, research cycle, theory, model, hypotheses, variable, causality, research designs (experiment, survey, case study, observation, archival study), research design choices (incl. unit of analysis, sampling / case selection), basics of quantitative data collection (e.g. survey scales) and analysis (descriptive statistics), basics of qualitative data collection (e.g. interviews) and analysis (coding), quality criteria for research (controllability, reliability, validity), research ethics)

All applicants need to submit either a grade list with an official GPA score included or submit a GPA calculation with the application. The GPA should be based on all results of full courses in the bachelor degree (i.e., assignment or subproject results do not count). A template for GPA calculation can be found here.

Following your application, the Innovation Management Admissions Board will decide on your enrollment. Note that students from a University of Applied Science (HBO) can be admitted when they adhere to the “enrollment criteria for non-TU/e”, but they will always have to follow and complete the entire premaster program (30 ECTS) and cannot apply for exemptions.

For more information on enrollment, send an email to the secretary of the Admissions Board, via ftc-ieis@tue.nl, adding a list of certified copies of your relevant diploma and bachelor subjects as well as a summary of the content of the subjects.

The pre-master program consists of 30 ECTS and is aimed at compensating deficiencies, with a particular focus on your academic attitude, knowledge of innovation theory, and research competence. Your knowledge will also be supplemented in specific areas with, for instance, mathematics and statistics as well as management disciplines. The program is only offered in Q1 and Q2, and for 2020-2021, the structure is as follows: