The State University of Campinas (Unicamp) is open for registration for the next class of the specialization course in Strategic Management of Technological Innovation, aimed at professionals who work with innovation, research and development (R&D), new businesses and digital transformation who want to update themselves for the market. The specialization is carried out by the Department of Scientific and Technological Policy of the Institute of Geosciences (DPCT/IG) of the University, through the Unicamp Extension School (Extecamp), lasting two years.
According to professor Ruy Quadros, course coordinator and professor at DPCT/IG, the specialization, which is celebrating its 18th anniversary, emerged as a response to market demand for training qualified professionals, especially company and ICT leaders, in the concepts and tools of strategic management of innovation, content that was not found in traditional undergraduate or postgraduate courses. “Today, we see that the course brings together many leaders from multinationals and Brazilian companies seeking strategic foundations on R&D and Innovation. In other words, our specialization is helping to form a group of people who make decisions within companies with a view on the importance and how to apply strategies that more effectively promote technological innovation in order to generate new business. And this is also a broader benefit for the country, as more innovative companies help to form a knowledge-based economy.”, highlights Quadros about the impact of Strategic Management of Technological Innovation.
This impact on the culture of innovation within companies with the work of trained professionals is observed in the career growth of graduates. The course, which has already specialized 243 professionals in the classes opened at Unicamp, now has 50 graduates who are directors and 97 managers in their departments, whereas when they started the MBA there were 18 directors and 61 managers. When following this data, Quadros clarifies that he does not associate career progression with taking the course, but rather the scope and social impact of the specialization, making it possible to affirm that professionals who seek the course aspire to and achieve strategic positions in their organizations or in others, influencing “the construction of organizational cultures more prone to innovation and less averse to risk and uncertainty.”
In addition to the professional training of students, companies and institutions that invest in corporate education for their employees also benefit because the course is structured in an instrumental format, with theoretical content applied to the individualized challenges of these professionals in the market. With practical classes, the program also encourages students' Final Course Work to focus on solving practical problems in the companies and institutions to which they are linked, a difference highlighted by Paulo Gandolfi, director of R&D and Innovation operations at 3M Latin America and student in the class that ends at the end of 2020.
Read article in full published on the website of the Inova Unicamp Innovation Agency
