Innovations are important for both nations and firms, driving economic growth and helping  firms to remain competitive. Consequently, safeguarding the innovative capacity of manufacturing and service industries is of the utmost importance for politicians and managers alike.

Innovations are new product forms resulting from new technology, new product attributes, or unique combinations of resources. Innovations that provide higher levels of value compared to existing products are those that are most likely to successfully penetrate the market and build customer franchise. Apart from incremental innovations, radical innovations involve new technological trajectories and often require more behavioral change from customers/users.

The Innovation Management Master program focuses on the issues of how to analyze, design and manage new product processes in technology-driven firms. Because in today’s turbulent business environment where innovation often involves (quasi) external acquisition of technology and/or close collaboration with customers, suppliers and competitors, open innovation is a vital perspective. The program also pays attention to other forms of new business development, including entrepreneurship and new venturing, i.e. how established firms spin off promising business initiatives.

As part of an industrial engineering school we focus on the operational processes of innovation and emphasize 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. Furthermore, the knowledge and skills you will learn will make you, as an individual, an important factor in enhancing any firm’s innovation capacity.

Developing successful innovations involves many challenges. An important issue, for example, is how to select high-opportunity projects at an early stage and prevent heavy investment in poor innovations. Often firms become so committed to a project that they never manage to "pull the plug" even when it has become apparent that the innovation may fail. Another problem concerns the dilemma that exploiting current technology may prevent firms from simultaneously developing new technology, whereas focusing on exploring new technologies may cause firms to falter in exploiting current capabilities. Experimenting with new organization forms, firms try to be ambidextrous, i.e. accomplish both types of innovation simultaneously. Finally, today most firms collaborate extensively in their innovation process with many partners. They collaborate with universities, customers, suppliers and even competitors. It helps them to control costs and provides them access to important complementary knowledge. However, this "open innovation" approach is complex. It has created many new challenges such as finding suitable partners, developing relational capabilities, and protecting and dividing property rights. Launching the new product, persuading customers of its advantages, also remains a challenge.

The Innovation Management Master program combines an exciting variety of disciplines, from mathematics to psychology, and applies this to a wide range of business fields, including new product development, alliance management and marketing.