Courses / Module

Innovation is a topical subject, but it is not a recent development. In this module students will explore significant innovations from past and present that have and continue to shape the world we live in. The word ‘innovation’ is used with such frequency that it is often drained of any clear meaning. Yet innovation is important for understanding the nature and possibility of successful organising that we have placed this module in your first year. For you to become more expert in the topic the module begins by asking you to consider some of the great ideas that shape our lives. Some come from science and thinkers that can be identified (relativity, magnetism), others from social history with a less clear path of individual inputs, including language, writing and money.

The next section of the module focuses on an important development in how the solution space for innovation is being deliberately expanded by today’s organisations. Individuals in many circumstances have always had a role to play in innovation, but we know too little about these contributions, especially among less elite actors, because of the way history has been written until lately. Now changes across the environment of big ideas make it possible for individual actors to play a much bigger role in innovation and often be recognized for that contribution. You can more easily be an innovator and are more likely to be asked to play that role. The second section of the module looks at this development in “open innovation.” Finally, we focus on Ireland as a country that is playing an important role in global innovation, with many actors attempting to increase that contribution. While most governments around the world have similar ambitions, Ireland’s success so far makes it worth studying not only as a resident of Ireland but as a student of innovation.