Building Innovation Systems for Development

15 credits
Spring teaching, year 1

Dissertation (Energy Policy for Sustainability)

60 credits
Summer teaching, year 1

Energy Policy and Sustainability

15 credits
Spring teaching, year 1

During this course you will analyse the conceptual and policy-related issues in energy policy and sustainability. Key approaches will include economics (including institutional and behavioural), political science, policy analysis and decision analysis. Particular focusses include theories of transition to sustainable energy futures, and analysing appropriate governance structures and appraisal methods.Key sustainability issues in the energy policy debate covered include: the trade-offs and synergies between sustainability and other policy objectives; technology choice issues, especially in relation to nuclear power and renewables; environmental and economic regulation and their interaction; the different levels of policy intervention (international, national, regional/local); problems in implementing energy efficiency policies and their relation to carbon emission reductions; and problems in policy approaches based on long-term scientific predictions of climate change. 

Governing energy transitions

15 credits
Spring teaching, year 1

This module will introduce you to a systems perspective on long-term, socio-technical change in the field of energy in order to explore the co-evolution of technologies with political, institutional, economic and social factors. This conceptual perspective will be illustratedwith historical case studies from the energy sector and explore the implications for governing transitions to a low carbon energy system in the developed world. The module will analyse and reflect on current policy approaches to governing low carbon transitions.

Substantive issues to be covered include:

• the historic transition from horse-drawn carriages to automobility
• low carbon innovation policy in the UK
• the 'energy transition' approach in the Netherlands
• the politics of governing transitions and the role interests play
• bottom-up approaches to changing energy systems such as the 'transition towns' movement
• the role of household practices
• strategies of incumbent energy companies to respond to pressures for change towards a low carbon energy system.

Information and Communication Technology Policy and Strategy

15 credits
Spring teaching, year 1

The course provides you with an overview of the strategic management and policy issues raised by the production and use of advanced information and communication technologies and services. Perspectives are drawn from economics, management and organisation theory, as well as political science and sociology. The focus is on the evolution of a complex technical system in the wider contexts of emerging user requirements in the public and private sectors. Much of the course is centred around the implications of the internet, particularly in terms of media conversion, regulation, productivity and employment, intellectual property rights and electronic commerce.

Innovation for Sustainability

15 credits
Spring teaching, year 1

This course explores the role innovation can play in sustainable development in industrialised and developing countries, including (but not limited to) its importance in mitigating and adapting to climate change. Key ideas include past and current theory on sustainability, growth and competitiveness (with specific reference to the role of technology), understanding and influencing directions of innovation, and the governance of socio-technical transitions. You will explore specific topics within each key idea, such as social and technical innovations in energy and resource use efficiency; economic and other policy instruments to promote such innovations; barriers to the diffusion of sustainable innovations; the role of innovative green niches in systems transformations; and the challenges of international co-ordination. These will be illustrated with reference to real world cases in the manufacturing, housing, agriculture and energy sectors.

Introduction to Statistical Research Methods

15 credits
Spring teaching, year 1

The course aims to provide you with a basic understanding of descriptive statistics and statistical inference as they are used in the social sciences, and to develop your skill in the use of a leading statistical software package (SPSS) so that you are able to perform statistical analysis relevant for reaching social science research conclusions. This is done through extensive hands-on practice. The descriptive statistics you will cover includes methods that can also be used for exploratory qualitative analysis.

Introducing Energy Policy and Sustainability

30 credits
Autumn teaching, year 1

Managing Knowledge

15 credits
Spring teaching, year 1

This course outlines the key institutional and organisational forms underpinning the emerging knowledge economy, looking closely at the pivotal role that knowledge workers play in the creation, application and diffusion of knowledge within and between firms.

You will consider new approaches to managing learning processes in the firm, including recent developments such as knowledge management and novel organisational structures. You will explore the role of labour mobility through different types of knowledge worker communities and networks. You will also consider the role of open-source innovation and knowledge transfer within and across epistemic communities, the role of new human resource management approaches, and network mapping techniques. You will go on to consider how certain skills are coming to play a critical role in the knowledge economy, such as knowledge brokering and gate-keeping. Finally, you will explore how labour market institutions that impact on careers shape different approaches to knowledge generation, and be introduced to key concepts associated with knowledge transfer, including social capital, knowledge exploration and exploitation, and the role of key actors in knowledge transfer.

Statistical Methods for Science, Technology and Innovation Studies

0 credits
Summer teaching, year 1

This course provides training and guidance in applied statistics for postgraduate students of various backgrounds who already have some acquaintance with elementary statistics. The course has two main components. The first provides you with basic training in the use and application of methods in your own research. This will cover multivariate analysis, including analysis of variance, factor analysis, discriminant analysis, principal components, and cluster analysis. The second is designed to strengthen your ability to interpret and assess statistical work undertaken by others in applications reported in the academic publications likely to be encountered while undertaking a SPRU course.

Perspectives, Methods and Skills for Science, Technology and Innovation Studies

15 credits
Spring teaching, year 1

This course initially provides an overview of the intellectual terrain covered by science and technology policy studies, with illustrations of some of the methodologies utilised in SPRU's work. The course then provides an introduction to, and basic training in, a range of some of those methods of inquiry and analysis, both qualitative and quantitative, which should enable you not just to recognise others' use of those methods, but also your own use to understand how and when those methods can be applied.

Science, Technology and Innovations: Markets, Firms and Policies

30 credits
Autumn teaching, year 1

The aim of this course is to introduce you to an ongoing tradition of research on innovation and the various analytical concepts and theories that are used in current academic, management and policy debates. It will explore the processes underlying knowledge accumulation and innovative activity within the global economy and review the historical and contemporary emergence of current innovation systems in both developed and developing country contexts. This includes analysis of the science system, technology, the management of innovation, the theory of the firm, the basis for public policy, environmental analysis, and innovation systems approaches.

The course has a key focus on developing understanding that contributes towards practical analysis of innovation policy and management problems, and therefore provides a range of analytical frameworks for understanding and exploring the nature of public policy and its influence on the operations of business firms and other organisations. These frameworks include economics, evolutionary economics, science and technology studies and history.

The economics part of the course aims to develop your understanding of the 'economic viewpoint' on issues of science and technology management and policy. This viewpoint is relevant for two reasons: first, it is widely believed that economics provides the rationale for the operation of market-based economies (the predominant form of economic organisation in the world today) and second, economic rationales are often the basis for policy decisions in business and government. It also aims to help you develop a set of specific skills in using economic measures and indicators that inform business and public policy.