Master of Science in
Digital Innovation and Management

The Programme

The MSc programme in Digital Innovation & Management equips you with the knowledge, skill-set, and tools to engage with the many challenges and opportunities created by digital change and innovation. It does so by combining knowledge and competences from many research fields such as qualitative and ethnographic studies of IT, science and technology studies, business, management and organisation studies, information studies, innovation studies, as well as cultural studies and philosophy.

As digital technologies evolve and proliferate, they affect organisations, people, and society in rapid and surprising ways. Managing the complexity of digitalisation requires the ability to make informed and timely decisions in situ. Classic management and organisational strategies do not always apply when working with turbulent digitalisation processes. Adopting the right mindset is crucial, and the ability to do so relies on developing a deep understanding of the complex interplay between people, organisational processes, and digital technologies.


Over the course of the programme, you will study how IT and data shapes society, organisations, and individual lives as well as how our relationship to IT is grounded in complex historical, cultural, and political contexts. And, in turn, you will explore how IT can be used to pursue a range of different goals and future trajectories.

The programme has a broad international outlook and is taught in English. Case material is derived from both Danish and international organisations.

Non-curricular events at the university can be held in Danish.




 

Meet a student from Digital Innovation & Management

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Is this programme for you?

As a student of Digital Innovation & Management, you want to make a difference in contemporary IT development and digital innovation. You are interested in digitalisation as a complex social, cultural, and technical phenomenon which requires theoretical sophistication and innovation, methodological ingenuity, and practical engagement.

You would like to work critically and constructively with organisational, societal, or business challenges and opportunities which often require unorthodox solutions.

Group work is central to the programme, so you should be motivated to collaborate with your fellow students.

You do not need a background in a technical discipline to study Digital Innovation & Management.


Programme structure

Throughout the programme in MSc in Digital Innovation & Management, you will encounter digital tools used for analytic, managerial, and organisational purposes. The programme has a flexible structure leaving room for you to shape your own unique profile. It contains mandatory courses, a specialisation, and, depending on your academic prerequisites, an elective.



Course of study for MSc in Digital Innovation & Management
1st semester

Navigating Complexity: Mapping, Visualisation & Decision-making
15 ECTS

Reassembling Innovation
7.5 ECTS 

Computational Literacies
7.5 ECTS

2nd semester

Processes Innovation
15 ECTS

Programming and Data Processing*
7.5 ECTS

Specialisation part 1
7.5 ECTS
3rd semester

Digital Organizing and Transformation
7.5 ECTS

Elective 
7.5 ECTS

Specialisation part 2
15 ECTS (including thesis prep activities)

4th semester

Master's Thesis
30 ECTS

*Students who have passed a similar course prior to admission are exempted and will have an elective instead.  





Mandatory courses

  • Navigating Complexity: Mapping, Visualisation and Decision-making (15 ECTS) will equip you with a set of theoretical and practical tools to conduct research design for navigating complex datasets. You will learn about inductive inquiry and methods for analysis of complexity including problematisation, controversy mapping, digital methods, and situational analysis.  The course offers tools for gathering, visualising and telling stories with different kinds of data, supporting translation between quantitative and qualitative approaches to knowledge production. You will gain critical historical and philosophical contextualisation of emerging data-driven knowledge practices across areas of digital management and innovation. These conceptual tools will help you to identify the social and political implications of data for knowledge production, organizational decision making, and governance in society today.
  • Reassembling Innovation (7.5 ECTS) will provide you with a range of theoretical perspectives and methodological tools to critically approach, understand, and analyse complex entanglements between IT, innovation and society. You will learn about organisational strategy and design within open ecosystems. Furthermore, the course will enable you to reflect upon your own role as active participant in future technological and societal developments, as well as to reflect on the politics and values embedded in the design and use of technologies.
  • Computational Literacies (7.5 ECTS) will enable you to use fundamental computer science concepts and methods. You will develop the ability to use computational thinking and methods as a way of understanding and solving complex problems and designing socio-technical systems. You will gain knowledge and understanding of abstract computer science concepts and methods as well as practical skills.
  • Process Innovation (15 ECTS) focuses on digital process innovation as a way to harness the potential of digital technologies to redesign organisational work processes and reconfigure internal and external resources in order to sense and respond to new opportunities and challenges. The course will cover process-oriented management, theories, frameworks, and methods for both continuous and radical process innovation and topics related to how digital technologies can support continuous and radical process innovation.
  • Digital Organizing and Transformation (7.5 ECTS) examines organizations in light of contemporary organizational and managerial challenges related to digital organizing and digital transformation. It investigates questions of the changing nature of work, and themes such as leadership, management, and organizing. The course covers theories and concepts from organizational studies, digital transformation, and change management that can help you better understand, and critically reflect upon, such profound challenges, while also offering hands-on approaches to managing them and engaging in the practice of digital transformation.
  • Programming and Data Processing (7.5 ECTS) gives you a basic introduction to programming and data processing. You will get a hands-on introduction to the Pyhtron programming language and how to work with tabular data. This will enable you to solve simple programmatic tasks as well as to get an idea of what the role of the programmer entails.






Specialisations

A specialisation is a 22.5 ECTS package of courses that allows you to explore a topic area in depth. This prepares you well for writing your master thesis. You must complete one specialisation during your studies. See the offered specialisations below and notice that you are allowed to design your own specialisation.

Electives and Master's Thesis

The electives and the master’s thesis offer further opportunities for shaping your own profile. You can choose between a number of courses offered at the IT University at master level for electives, or even take electives at a different Danish or international university. The master’s thesis can be completed in groups or individually.

See a description of all courses.




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Specialisations

Specialisations offered

A specialisation is a 22.5 ECTS package of courses that allows you to explore a topic area in depth. This prepares you well for writing your master's thesis. You must complete one specialisation during your studies. You can choose between the specialisations offered at the IT University or you can customise your own specialisation. 

Customise your own specialisation

It is possible to apply for an individual specialisation. This means that you combine a package of 22.5 ECTS point of connected and relevant courses and/or projects. You might be inspired by taking a look at the specialisations offered by the other master programmes at the IT University. You can also obtain an individual specialisation at another university in Denmark or abroad.

Big data offers opportunities and risks; these in turn require deep technical knowledge as well as critical skills to analyse the quality and expected impact of any solution. Making sense of data is a key interdisciplinary challenge for many organisations, institutions and governments so they can understand and adapt quickly to changing conditions. For instance, a hospital can incorporate GPS data about the location of its ambulances and helicopters with data about the mission, the emergency calls, and the current status in various emergency rooms in order to take decisions in real-time when faced with an emergency call. Or for instance, step counters and mobile phones can be connected with Amazon Echo voice-activated assistant to help manage family life while potentially allowing a range of vendors to ensure availability of groceries and other products the family might need. While both these scenarios evoke a future of efficiency and convenience, they also raise issues about privacy and the influence such data services might have on work practices and everyday lives.

Extracting value from big data depends in part on solving engineering challenges and hiring data scientists, but the key lies in interdisciplinary and critical analyses of big data processes and solutions. The courses in this specialisation offer an opportunity for you to engage with technical challenges, organisational processes and societal concerns around big data. Most importantly, you will learn how to translate critical and theoretical tools you have gained throughout the program into practice and application.

Course: Big Data Processes (7.5 ECTS)

Organizations increasingly employ processes for collecting, generating, storing, governing and analysing large amounts of data. Such Big Data Processes, based on the discovery of meaningful patterns and insights in large datasets, can be used to explain and predict complex phenomena. In this class we will engage hands-on with all of the stages of a typical big data project around a specific case. This includes the collection and generation of data, as well as its visualisation and analysis for critical insights. This course presents students with opportunities to engage technically with data using state-of-the-art tools, in reflecting on the technological and societal implications, and limitations, at every relevant stage of the process. This includes discussions of how to derive value from big data processes as well as ethical and legal issues such as the use of personal data.

Course: Critical Big Data Management (15 ECTS)

There is no longer one approach that can fit all data management problems. For each problem, big data managers have to decide on appropriate models and systems to handle the relevant data. In this course, you will be introduced to a variety of methods in big data analytics and machine learning, and, using the skills acquired in the first part of the specialisation, will apply this to solve a specific business related problem. Based on the specific big data analysis, you will reflect on its organisational, legal, and ethical implications. 


The world as we know it today is characterised by complicated, sometimes complex social-technical digital systems, which surround us at every moment. We are integrated in communication networks, computer-mediated social networks, integrated billing and payment system, multi-modal transport systems, smart power grids and many more systems and infrastructures, which aim at effortless support of our modern life. The same interlaced network of integrated service systems can be found in commercial environments, where enterprise resource planning systems, supply chain management system, financial transaction systems and many more have to work together in an interactive, automated or semi-automated way. These digital service economics have grown over several decades now, but they are dynamic and constantly changing. Maturing systems are decommissioned, new systems are added, older systems are revitalised, and additional functionalities are added to existing systems.

The Digital Economics specialisation comprises the courses Service Economics as well as Blockchain Economics. The specialisation thus is concerned about explaining and developing the value creation and distribution of goods and services in existing and future digital economies.

Service Economics (7.5 ECTS)

Service economies are becoming more complex as existing service systems are increasingly interconnected. While individuals are paying with their smart phones, watching Internet-TV, or calling friends via voice-over-IP, companies use integrated service systems for business intelligence or orchestrate complicated service sourcing networks with their vendors. Thus, understanding service economies is becoming increasingly crucial for prudent management of emerging service systems. Since new, interconnected service systems have been introduced at an amazing rate in the last decade, society somewhat diverted attention away from evaluating and assessing the resulting impact on service systems stability.

Blockchain Economics (15 ECTS)

Blockchain economic systems are still in their infancy but receive a dramatic increase in industrial and academic interest. Start-ups, as well as industry initiatives, are working intensely on blockchain-based innovations, making the technology one of the most promising drivers of innovation in many sectors and industries. However, the design and implementation of blockchain-based systems requires know-how in various areas, as well as mindful consideration of larger economic and societal issues. This course focuses on technological and economic foundations of blockchain economics, as well as complex systems theories, market engineering, strategies and governance of distributed systems, and network effects. Moreover, economic benefits of standards for new types of sharing economies and the Internet of Things will be discussed. A critical reflection of digital determinism as well legal implications will be included as well.

The changes being brought about by digitalization processes are particularly visible in the public sector. A successful digital future, such as the one envisaged in various Danish digitalization strategies, requires a thorough engagement with the motivations, priorities, histories, practices and discourses that drive digitalization processes. It also requires a set of methodological tools and theoretical concepts suited to take into account the technologies at the centre of public digitalization, such as machine-learning algorithms, data centres, biometrics, satellite-based control mechanisms, social media platforms, digital patient journals and user portals.

This specialization provides you with a grounding in the history, theory, policy, expectations, challenges, practicalities and methods of digitalization initiatives. The two parts of the specialisation are united in their shared concern with ethnographic studies and both draw on theoretical frameworks from anthropology, Science and Technology Studies and organizational studies. In the first part, The Digital State, you develop an historically informed foundation for thinking about technologies and state projects over time, and a global perspective on public digitalization initiatives. The second part of the specialization, Digitalization and Public Sector Transformations, revolves around practical research projects in the local government setting and the different kinds of processes currently underway. 

By following the specialisation, you will gain critical skills in analysing, conceptualising and contextualising the changes around us. You will develop competences in the methods and techniques through which to study public digitalization yourself. Together, the two parts of the specialization provide a grounded and comparative understanding of the digitizing state in Scandinavia, and prepare you to work at the forefront of public sector transformations.

Course: The Digital State (7.5 ECTS)

The Digital State asks what the state is, in order to provide a foundation for understanding the changes that are taking place through initiatives of public digitalization. Taking a historical, comparative and global perspective, the course is arranged by themes which move us from past examples into the present and the everyday. 

First, we examine different understandings of the State, and how it can be present in everyday life. Drawing on students’ own encounters with the State, we critically explore the familiar. Next, we examine some of the motivations driving digitalization projects, and consider the priorities of those implementing such schemes. In our third theme, we consider the technologies involved in digitalization projects, across a range of state sectors. To see local initiatives clearly from where we are –in Denmark – we make use of comparative material from other countries, where digitalization projects play out differently. Drawing on cases from China, India, Iceland, Norway and more, we look at the different priorities and concerns arising around State digitalization globally. The course concludes with a regional focus on questions of trust and accountability in the Scandinavian State.

Course: The Digital State in Practice (15 ECTS)

This second part of the specialisation builds on theoretical tools from The Digital State and combines them with empirical insights into how public sector transformations take place and unfold in practice. 

Digitalization is bringing large-scale institutional changes to the public sector, not least in Denmark, a world-leading IT nation. Our focus in Digitalization and Public Sector Transformations is on the Danish public sector. You will have the opportunity to go into depth with the ‘how’ of public sector digitalization: how are digitalization processes changing the landscapes and infrastructures of the public sector today? Which types of hopes, challenges, motivations and risks are involved in these processes?

The course consists of three main elements:

  • Thematic focus: How are digitalisation processes changing and challenging the welfare state? How are local governmental institutions, welfare encounters, work, professions and management practices changed by digitalization?  
  • Concepts and method: How do we study and make sense of the changing organisational practices of the Danish welfare state?
  • Project work: Grouped in research teams, you will conduct ethnographic research projects in local governmental settings going through processes of digitalization.  

You will carry out ethnographic research projects in groups in a local governmental setting, where you will study an ongoing IT project. As digital technologies transform internal work and management practices, they also transform the relation between welfare professionals and citizens. Understanding these processes of transformation and what they entail is crucial for working with digitalization, both in the public sector or a consultant in the private sector. 

Through your ethnographic research project, you will gain insight into the implementation and the organizational and societal changes caused by digitalization. Your project will enable you to link your empirical work to core theoretical concepts in the specialisation, and can be used as preparation for your thesis.

 

 



The specialisation comprises both service design and service management perspectives. Service Design is an approach which covers the analysis, design, and development of digital services. In turn, Service Management is a perspective focusing on the management of complex services and their ecosystems.

To design services it is essential to comprehend the whole life cycle of the service, the design, delivery, and management. Similarly, service management requires an understanding of the design principles and their underlying logic. This dual perspective helps you to get a grasp of service management and service design – and provides a solid foundation for your career development.

The specialisation draws on multidisciplinary fields based on theory, insights, and techniques from the design discipline, management, and business administration. We educate professionals who can operate in complex digital service environments and service ecosystems in private companies, public organizations, and non-governmental organizations. In addition, the specialization provides you with approaches, methods, and tools to understand services and their ecosystems, and co-create value to multiple actors in varying service contexts.

Course: Introduction to Service Design and Management (7.5 ECTS):

This course introduces you to Service Design and its basic principles, methods, and tools. The course focuses especially on the design of services that are either fully digital or where digital components play an important role. The teaching consists of lectures, case studies, and practical exercises. On the course you will, among other things, learn to develop and evaluate services by using methods such as service blueprint and co-design.

Course: Service Design - Management and Implementation (15 ECTS):

This course is the second part of the specialisation in Service Design. Therefore, participation requires that the introductory course has been completed. In this course you learn about the management and improvement of existing digital services and the importance of collaboration with different stakeholders. You learn to identify stakeholders who are involved in a service (such as public organisations, private companies and non-governmental organisations) and their motivations and needs, as well as challenges for implementing and operating digital services.

During the course, you will work on a project where you have to map challenges about a digital service in an organisation or a private company and suggest improvements to that service.



Specialisation portraits

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Teaching

The teaching method alternates between lectures and project work. Students are expected to show initiative, hone collaborative skills, and practice project management. Your professors and lecturers are among the best in the field, and you are expected to prepare well and participate actively in class.

Project work is an important part of the MSc in Digital Innovation & Management. This offers the opportunity to delve deeper into specific areas that interest you or your project group. Project work also allows you to engage more in depth with case organisations.

 

 

The programme in general – and the comprehensive 15 ECTS courses in particular – is designed to enable you to study or collaborate with public organisations or private companies and explore how theory applies to practice. Collaboration with public or private companies enables you to focus on current industry or societal challenges. This furthermore allows you to network with the organisation in the business area that you study, before you graduate.

The programme is taught in English and course material will be in English. There will be used cases and examples from both Danish and international organisations.

 

 

Exchange

During your studies you may study a semester abroad. The 3rd semester is well suited for this. This offers you the chance to further specialise and experience studying in a different environment and living in another country.

The IT University has exchange agreements with universities around the world. For students enrolled in Digital Innovation & Management, we recommend:

  • Australia – Queensland University of Technology
  • Australia  University of Technology Sydney
  • France – University of Montpellier 2
  • Germany – Frankfurt School of Finance and Management
  • Iceland – Reykjavik University
  • Japan – Kyoto University
  • New Zealand – Auckland University of Technology
  • Spain – Universidad Politécnica de Madrid
  • Switzerland – Università della Svizzera italiana
  • Taiwan – Taipei Technical University
  • Turkey – Koç University

Admission requirements

The Danish government has decided to put a ceiling on the number of international students admitted each year, as too many international students leave and work outside Denmark after graduation.

Therefore, ITU has introduced Danish language (A level) as admission requirement for the MSc in Digital Innovation & Management.

The Danish language requirement means that you should be able to use Danish at an academic level. You need to be able to write, read, listen to and speak Danish at the highest level. You can obtain the Danish language requirement by passing the ‘Studieprøven i dansk som andetsprog’, which is a nationally recognized test for foreign language speakers administered by numerous language schools in Denmark. If you do not speak Danish, it usually takes 3 years to prepare for this test. Please contact Ucplus or Clavis for more information about ‘Studieprøven i dansk’. 

Read more about how you can obtain the Danish language requirement here, and if you already have Danish A level you can read about the admission requirements on our Danish website.

With a legal right to admission

If you have a BSc in Global Business Informatics or BSc in Data Science with Business Track (and have been admittet in 2020 or before) from ITU you have a legal right to be admitted to the MSc in Digital Innovation & Management even if you have not passed Danish at A level. Read more here.

If you have a legal right to be admitted, you only have to create an application in the application portal.

Career opportunities

Digital Innovation & Management offers a global perspective on IT and prepares you well for an exciting career in the private or public sector.

With an MSc in Digital Innovation & Management you can become a liaison between business and IT with the ability to speak both languages and act as boundary spanners between different communities of practice. You will know about the affordances of state-of-the-art IT as well as the business needs of different organisations. Furthermore, as graduate from Digital Innovations & Management you will know how to facilitate and make decisions that are based on data analysis and interpretation. You will also be able to dissect the complexity of modern organisations, analyse problems, and propose solutions to social and technical challenges.

Information technology is everywhere. As a graduate, you will be an asset for a wide array of employers in the private as well as the public sector. You will be well-equipped to shape your career in a changing professional environment.

The job titles listed below are examples of positions and tasks, you may be qualified for, depending on your area of specialisation in the programme:

  • Consultant
  • Business Analyst
  • Business Intelligence Specialist
  • Chief Information Officer
  • Enterprise Architect
  • Functional Manager (e.g. Finance, Marketing)
  • Innovation Manager
  • IT Project Manager
  • Process Manager/Owner
  • Product/Service Manager
  • R&D Manager
  • Solution Architect 

If you are interested in applying for a PhD at the IT University, please read more here.


Career portraits

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Are you interested in studying at the IT University of Copenhagen, and do you have questions about programmes, student life or the like, please contact the Study and Career Guidance.