Innovation & Entrepreneurship Certificate
The Post-Master's Certificate in Innovation & Entrepreneurship is targeted towards current doctoral students and post-doctoral fellows at the University of Alberta. The certificate is intended as a complement your doctoral studies and provide you with competencies around innovation management, technology commercialization, and building new organizations.
You will need to complete four graduate-level courses, two required courses plus your choice of two courses from an approved list. The two required courses are:
SEM 631 - New Venture Creation and Organization
This course concentrates on the development of a new enterprise and the management of an existing small business. Casework and projects enable students to assess the opportunities, risks, and capabilities necessary for entrepreneurial success. The course emphasizes managerial and strategic problems during the early years of business formation and growth, including business planning. The course emphasizes the interface between theory and practice.
SEM 659 - The Strategic Management of Innovation and Entrepreneurship
This course addresses business principles at the interface of organization and technological change. It is intended for future managers and entrepreneurs, and provides the strategic frameworks needed to manage and profit from technological innovation. This course is designed in three parts, starting with an examination of innovation in the context of historical patterns of technological change. Second, it will address the organizational challenges in creating and managing innovation. To close, the course will integrate this knowledge and introduce strategies for commercialization and business development. Case studies and a final project will create opportunities to apply the frameworks.
You would also select two courses from the options listed below:
SEM 600 - From Science to Business: Translational and Entrepreneurial Challenges
This is a project-focused course on technology entrepreneurship and translation. At the core of the course will be `real life' projects that require business development analysis and assessment. Based on their projects, students will be expected to produce technology commercialization plans as a key output for the course. In addition, the course will address key strategic and policy issues related to enhancing technology entrepreneurship at the science-business interface. Topics covered include open innovation systems, the challenges associated with the bridging the gap between science and business, and the strategic management technology translation and entrepreneurship.
FIN 635 - Venture Capital
Covers the theory and practice of venture capital financing of entrepreneurial firms. Topics to be discussed include, but are not limited to, the following areas: venture capital fundraising (labour-sponsored venture capital corporations, limited partnerships and corporate venture capital) characteristics of entrepreneurial ventures (including agency problems, firm valuation) at different stages of development (seed, start-up, expansion, mezzanine, buyout, turnaround), the structure of venture capital financial contracts (staging, syndication, forms of finance), restrictive covenants, investment duration, and venture capital exits (IPOs, acquisitions, secondary sales, buybacks, write-offs).
SEM 601 - Innovation and Sustainability: The Cleantech Revolution
The clean technology and renewables course is a course designed to fit with three areas of graduate study: technology development and transfer, strategy, and sustainability. In this course, we will begin with an examination renewable energy industries (solar, water, wind, etc.) and clean technologies focused on waste and recycling. Clean and green strategies will be identified and discussed, using specific examples from our international clean technology research and database. At the end of the course, students will present either a project with a local clean technology company project or a case analysis of a key clean technology company of interest.
B LAW 658 - Intellectual Property Law and Technology Commercialization
An overview of key legal concepts from a variety of jurisdictions related to intellectual property and its commercialization. The course will follow a comparative case-based approach to explore formal laws, institutions and business practices related to IP in technological innovation. Topics covered may include copyright, trademark, industrial design, database protection, patent law, application process and patent searching, and licensing strategies, with a special focus on the life sciences. The course aims to provide students with the skills required to address legal issues arising from technological innovation.
MARK 502 - Principles of Marketing Management
This course commences with an examination of core marketing concepts, including strategic marketing planning, segmentation and the marketing mix (product, price, place and promotion) and the integration of these concepts into a marketing plan. Specific focus is then provided to developing pragmatic skills regarding marketing effectiveness.
MARK 612 - Marketing Research
Provides an examination of marketing research methodologies emphasizing the translation of marketing problems into researchable form, research design, data gathering, data analysis, and implementation of research results.For more details on the certificate, please contact us directly at:
P: 780-492-3946