Programme design

| May 3, 2015 | MSPI content | No Comments

 

The MSPI programme provides academic training as well as professional skills and career-enhancing credentials, drawing on Swedish and international experience.

program-design

Graduates will be prepared for a wide spectrum of tasks such as:

  • Analyzing sustainability challenges of an organization in a scientific way.
  • Incorporating a strategic sustainability perspective into the innovation process of a company.
  • Utilizing new methods and tools, and previous engineering specialization, for working with companies on sustainable product-service system innovation.
  • Advancing the global shift to a more service-based economy.

 Programme design

The design of the program is in response to the industrial demand for graduates who can combine engineering competence with sustainability knowledge to help deliver new product/service systems. Therefore this program is in close ongoing connection with industries. The aim of this Master’s program, in line with the main purpose of research in sustainable product and service innovation at BTH, are:

  1. To support the sustainable development of global economy and society, and
  2. To strengthen Swedish industry in the increasingly sustainability-driven global market.

An important objective of the program is that students will gain insight and knowledge of how different companies work. In other words, to tackle today’s problems, including unsustainable human development, it is crucial that future designers and engineers will be prepared with down-to-earth and hands-on experiences. And that is only possible by providing an environment in which industry representatives and students can work together to share knowledge and experience. As a result, students will increasingly work together with companies throughout the program, culminating in a thesis carried out in partnership with a company.

In order to tackle complex socio-ecological challenges of human society, each designer should have a broad perspective, or a bird’s eye view. Practically, this means that those who work with product innovation must have expertise in strategic sustainable development and have the ability to evaluate a product’s positive and negative socio-ecological impact during its life cycle, as well as the related economic conditions and implications. It is therefore necessary to have a structured overview of the system “society in the biosphere” – and this is exactly what we will share with you in this program!

The program revolves around sustainability, development of product-service systems and innovation, as shown in the figure below. Consequently, the program courses are developed around these areas. Most courses provide real projects that allow good opportunity to practice the knowledge that is developed in each course.

MSPI have cornerstones in Innovation, Design Thinking, Sustainable Development, and Product-Service Systems.

Cornerstones of MSPI
Cornerstones of MSPI

More specifically, the academic goals of participating students are to be able to:

  • Analyze sustainability challenges for an organization in a scientific manner.
  • Introduce a strategic perspective of sustainability to a product innovation process in a company.
  • Use new methods and tools, and former engineering specialty, to work with sustainable product and service innovation in industry.
  • Support a transition towards a more service-oriented economy.

Courses

Here is a list of the courses included in the MSPI programme. Click on the course name to get more information about the course.

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