The Practical Innovation Project (18 ECTS credits) aims to provide students with hands-on experience in managing a complete innovation process. This experience equips them with necessary skills to effectively lead innovation projects in a professional.
Students work in interdisciplinary groups to develop innovative products and/or services, applying the tools and skills acquired during both theoretical and practical courses.
During the Practical Innovation Project, students collaborate in teams to execute an innovation process, either driven by technology (technology push) or market opportunities (market pull). These projects are based on real developments provided by external partners (startups, SMEs, NGOs, multinationals or public institutions).
The project is supervised by the Master's course leaders and supported by a network of professionals from industry and the innovation ecosystem in French-speaking Switzerland. This practical, hands-on approach is structured into six main phases:
- Empathy: The empathy phase aims to gain a deep understanding of the needs, desires, and constraints of the stakeholders involved in an innovation project.
- Definition: The definition phase focuses on managing divergences and convergences to synthesize information, helping to define the project's key challenges and opportunities.
- Ideation: The ideation phase encourages creativity and openness, using various methods and techniques to generate innovative ideas while guiding stakeholders in selecting the most promising solutions.
- Prototyping: The prototyping phase involves creating simplified, tangible versions of the proposed solutions.
- Testing: The testing phase evaluates the prototypes to validate concepts, identify weak points, and make improvements before final implementation.
- Implementation: The implementation phase tests technological feasibility, deploys the marketing and industrialization plan for the product and/or service, and integrates it into the portfolio of existing or future products.
At the end of the process, students present the project principals with a range of ideas for the further development of their product portfolio. For the most promising concept, they deliver communication tools such as demonstrators, mock-ups, and videos, along with a market potential assessment and a marketing plan aligned with the company’s strategy.