Creating Innovation

The third course of the specialization CREATING INNOVATION will teach you what is at the core of all innovations that solve complex problems and how to foster methods to make big breakthroughs possible. It advances your knowledge of your own field by teaching you to look at it in new ways. CREATING INNOVATION is constructed in the following way: Week I. “What is Innovation?” – What lies at the core of all innovations. Week II. “The Evolution of Human Creativity” – How humans developed the ability to innovate and think creatively. Week III. “Innovation in a Complex Global Network” – How innovations emerge from human networks. Week IV. “Planning Innovation” – How organisations seek out and create the right conditions for new breakthroughs. Week V. “Market Innovation” – What makes innovations more likely to emerge in a market setting. Week VI. “Innovation in the Anthropocene” – How innovations are crucial to meet the problems of the 21st century.

• What is Innovation?
• Welcome to Course 3 of the specialisation! In this module we will look at what innovation is, in the broadest possible context, and how the innovations humans devise to solve complex problems are the continuation of a much bigger and more critical trend.
• The Evolution of Human Creativity
• In this module we will look at the main drivers of human innovation and how they have shaped the entirety of human society and history.
• Innovation in a Complex Global Network
• In this module, we will examine the information networks that arose out of increasing human complexity, from the earliest such networks to the global network that fosters human innovation today.
• Planning Innovation
• This module will deal with top-down innovations, where large organisations shape their infrastructures to maximize the chances of discovering an innovative solution to a problem.
• Market Innovation
• In this module we will examine bottom-up innovation, where the forces of supply and demand can under the right conditions foster innovation and increase the chances of them occurring.
• Innovation in the Anthropocene
• In this module, we will look at the future of innovation and how we may cope with the complex problems that arise out of the Anthropocene.