"Creativity and Innovation in Theory and Practice" Course is a cooperation between MÄLARDALEN UNIVERSITY (MDH),School of Innovation, Design and Engineering in Eskilstuna, SWEDEN, I.FrankoNationalUniversity of L´viv (IFU), Faculty of Applied Mathematics

7.5 ECTS-credits at Malardalen University [1]

Advanced level in Innovation Science & Management. Fall 2008 - Spring 2009

Sweden and Ukraine in cooperation

The course introduces creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship as a topic on the academic agenda and as a source to development and growth. The students in the course are expected to actively support The Idea Lab Organization at IFU. The course is a co-operation between Mälardalen University (MDH) and I.Franko National University of L´viv (IFU). It is based on our General Cooperation Agreement signed by the rectors in April 2006 and our joint project University Business Development Centres (UBDC) running for 2005-2009 and financed by Sida (The Swedish international development and cooperation agency).

Purpose of the course

The purpose and overarching objective of this course is to supply students with knowledge and practical abilities in creative, innovative and entrepreneurial processes. This is achieved by introducing students to the theoretical/scientific understanding and of practical methods/tools that can be used to enhance their capacity in this field.

The knowledge acquired by a student in the course gives him/her a competitive advantage in further studies and professional work. Companies today all over the world are looking for people who are creative and who can enhance creativity and innovations in their organization and business.

Learning objectives

After having passed the course, the student is able to:

Understand and have developed insights in creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship – in theory and practice – for professional/personal development, teams/social groups, companies/organizations and societies/nations.

Plan, select, lead, manage, implement and evaluate different strategies, methods and tools in creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship.

Course content

The course consists of the following 5 main parts – in theory and in practice – of creativity, innovation, design and entrepreneurship:

Part 1) The Principles of Creativity and Innovation with the innovation imperative in today´s global economy, prerequisites for organizing innovation and entrepreneurship, networks and systems supporting innovation, creativity and idea generation.

Part 2) Product and process innovation and design takes a more concrete view on how new products, services and processes can be developed and how the manufacturing and service capabilities need to be adapted and developed to meet the demands of speed and complexity - but also simplicity - in new products. The design process is a crucial part of the success on the individualized customer market today, where design and innovation are merging.

Part 3) Creating and sharing knowledge and intellectual propertylooks at the need for searching and creating new knowledge, to protect new ideas and business knowledge, ways to share new knowledge, the importance to understand the relationships between knowledge, networks, learning and innovation and to understand and to build a leadership and management to support organizational learning for innovation.

Part 4) Entrepreneurship, business creation and exploiting innovations looks at the context of entrepreneurship, the processes of creating new ventures from both business and social perspectives, but also of intrapreneurship in existing organizations.

Part 5) Innovation, sustainability and globalization, looks atthe links between innovation, growth and sustainability, corporate social responsibility, national and inter-national competitiveness, comparison and learning.This part will also consolidate the previous parts/themes in the course and focus on making innovation happen.

Student driven exercises/projects are carried out independently by the student teams running throughout the whole course with support from the Team of Teachers and the Ivan Franko Idea Lab Team, as

• visits and reports of company visits,
  

• creative tool exercises on a small group, for example your own student team,
  

• generate your own idea to the idea competition,
  

• work on developing your own idea,
  

• exercises, cases etc in innovation to be analyzed linked to the literature (Bessant & Tidd on Innovation and Entrepreneurship),
  

• present different books and scientific articles (see literature list) to your own student team and to include in your team learning process
  

• individual paper on creativity and innovation including your personal leadership concept and learning outcomes of the course in written form and to be presented oral in seminars.
  

Each team will work out their own “pedagocial team contract”. The purpose is to create a mutual commitment and responsibility for a good learning outcome in the teams and in the communication with teachers and companies/organizations to be visited in the course. The outcome of a course is always depending on the teachers´ and the students´ motivation, knowledge, communication and learning. Characteristic for a good learning situation is an “open dialogue”.In an open learning dialogue and “climate” teachers and students communicate, are flexible and together make changes if necessary. The course web-site is one more important way of information and communication.

Research and practice have shown the importance of differences in the personalities and knowledge in teams especially in working with creativity, innovation and entrepreneurial activities. The student teams should therefore at the start of a long-term team-work try to know each others´ uniqueness, values and previous knowledge. From this analisys it is easier to find out the common platform and use the different mind-sets as a strength for the team as a whole.Differences could also be in the individual team members´ motivation and expectations on each other. How to get effective team meetings, time schedules, deadlines and learning support to each other etc. is also a result of the communication and commitments in the teams.

It is easy to find the same view in the life outside of the universities, for examples in the daily work in a company, in doing business with customers or in sport team activities. Just imagine what will happen in an important development project in a company if only half of the team will show up at an agreed meeting or if the football team just have half of the team at the start of a match without communicating with the project manager, the coach and/or the team. Ethical commitments and mutual responsibility are prerequisites for every successful company, organization and team today.

Course Home Page

Course information is spread and disseminated through the web-page:www.idea4life.org.ua and is run by Viktoriya Loboda, Ukrainian Distance Learning System (UDL) in Lviv, a web-creator and -coordinator in the UBDC project.

Teachers

• Sten Ekman, Doctor/PhD, Innovation Science & Management, Mälardalen University (MDH), Head of the course from MälardalenUniversity.
  

• Annalill Ekman, Psychologist, Doctor/PhD, Innovation Science & Management, MDH, Examiner of the course.
  

• Sven Hamrefors, Doctor/PhD, Innovation Science & Management, MDH.
  

• Ihor Katernyak, Doctor/PhD, Ukrainian Country Coordinator The UBDC-project
  

• Viktoriya Loboda, PhD Candidate, tutor and web-creator from UDL and The UBDC-project is the website creator and coordinator throughout the course and she also supports the “flow of communication and information” of the course.
  

• Professor/PhD Yarema Savula, Dean of Faculty of Applied Mathematics & Informatics, is the Administrative Head of the course at IFU.
  

• Guests from the Ukrainian industry to Be Announced.
• Guest lectures from Mälardalen University and Munktell Science Park