About the training

No innovation without strategic communication: stakeholder engagement sharpens ideas, diversity is a virtue in collaboration and teamwork, and strategic knowledge exchange is essential for successful innovation. Good quality communication can be designed and strategically used in practice, and helps in tackling complex issues. Especially when dreams, thoughts, but also resistance, annoyances and disbeliefs come together. This stand-alone post-academic training at the Delft University of Technology is the first explicit communication design program in the world for communication and innovation professionals that results in a TU Delft course certificate. It also prepares you for a possible follow-up PhD track.

Is this program for me?
You are working within strategic and collaborative networks of innovation, and you are responsible for managing (parts of) the process in order to bring good quality innovations to your organisation practice or the market on time. If you think that communication is a key element in this and want to learn to strategically design, develop and deploy this, this program is for you.       

This post-master program is especially designed for you as a professional with at least 5 years of working experience after your master program. In your work you consider complex, (tactical) strategic communication issues that transcend your own area of expertise. Solutions are often unknown and ask for an innovative and adaptive learning approach. There are multiple stakeholders, with possibly contradictory stakes and values, who need to collaborate.

You wish to further develop your strategic communication vision development through design-based research, to continue to develop and renew yourself and your approaches and to further professionalise your own communicative and innovative practice. As examples of relevant fields, we consider e.g. professionals who work in (large) innovative innovation projects, in both the technical and social domain. We think about e.g. smart city development, sustainable and inclusive urban development, CO2 storage, OV chip cards, self-driving vehicles, Blockchain, citizen or patient participation, accessibility and inclusivity of regulation and legislation development, collaborative innovation in education, etc. You work at (the boundaries of):

• Corporate/industry: experts who deal with communication and social complexity, or communication professionals, who are employed as e.g. business developers, innovation managers, innovation strategists. employees and managers of communication departments, communication managers, brand designers, etc.;
• Government: communication advisers, policy advisors, program managers, innovation managers and others who work with communication in and around large innovative projects, e.g. in fields of participation, engagement and co-design;
• Academia: experts within universities and academic institutions, who are explicitly looking for strategic collaborations between actors, including governments and industry, e.g. in areas of science/technology communication, innovation portfolio management, patient/stakeholder engagement, educational development such as 21st century transdisciplinary learning and international project acquisition.