Since the industrial revolution, changes in the pace and direction of innovation have altered the industrial and societal landscape, bringing new enterprises to life and transforming established companies and influencing nations’ potential for growth and prosperity.  Technology has already transformed erstwhile trade and agriculture-based countries into industrialized economies.  These developments seem to have passed Sub-Saharan African countries by.  The purpose of this programme is to introduce the study of technology and innovation as all-important in the country’s educational system.

Our expectation is that

1. policy makers will incorporate technological change and innovations into the various national socioeconomic plans; and
2. businesses and other implementers will be inclined to innovate as a matter of routine in their production processes and in their products so as to be competitive domestically and in the international market.

Goals

Science and technology are important driving forces in economic, social and political change.  Scientific development and technological innovation are, in turn, shaped by the economic, social, political and environmental contexts in which they occur.  The M.Sc. programme in Economics of Technology and Development seeks to provide an opportunity to study these issues at the graduate level.  It also seeks to train students to introduce innovation as a matter of routine in their workplaces whether they move directly into private sector employment, or into the ministries, departments, agencies, and NGOs.

Objectives

The graduate programmes in the economics of technology are designed to:
(1). introduce students to the role of technology in national and international development and competitiveness;

(2). develop the capacity of students to enable them to incorporate technological change into national socioeconomic plans;
(3). produce graduates who can assist individual firms to generate innovations in their processes of technological and managerial development;
(4). develop partnerships with industry to promote technological change and innovativeness
(5). develop the capacity of the Economics Department of UCC to function as a center for study of economics of technological change and innovativeness.

Date of Commencement

The proposed programmes will come into effect in the 2008/2009 academic year.

Target Group – M.Sc.

Participants from industrial establishments, agro-industries, private entrepreneurs, middle and higher level decision makers from public institutions, and NGOs.

Admission Requirements
Prospective applicants should have at least a second class degree in the pure and applied sciences or in the social sciences

Programme Duration
Fifteen (15) months.  Taught period – nine (9) months.  Practicum and Dissertation – six (6) months.