Course Details

Course Code(s):
PDDFINTFCD
Available:
Part-Time
Duration:
1 Year
Award:
Professional Diploma
Qualification:
NFQ Level 9 Minor Award
Faculty: Kemmy Business School
Course Type: Taught, Professional/Flexible
Fees: For Information on Fees, see section below.

Contact(s):

Name: Harriet Cotter
Email: kbsacademy@ul.ie

Express Interest

Register your interest here for more information or to be notified when applications are open.

Brief Description

Start Date: Subject to Application

Face into Uncertainty and Complexity – Stop Reacting to the Future – Shape it.

An 8-Week Digital Futures and Innovation Programme designed for Professionals with Urgent Business Needs

Are you looking to transform part or all of your business by scaling up for new product innovations, customers or supplier territories? Would you like to learn how to understand and navigate complex stakeholder relationships? Do you appreciate that market systems are increasingly susceptible to shock and crisis? Want to shape the future market for your business?

This programme is an ideal fit for you if you are:

  • Leading or working within a multi-stakeholder project with a futures-oriented mission and wish to expedite successful solutions.
  • Working in a strategic, futures-oriented role that requires you to navigate complexity and uncertainty in new markets or business environments.
  • Wanting to actively enable yourself, your team and your organisation to adapt and innovate for a better future.  
  • Wishing to advance your career by upskilling in critical innovation, problem-solving and market shaping skills for a digitally transformed, hybrid world.
  • Tried and are tired of the more traditional strategic development and planning tools. You are looking for a more contemporary, future-fit way of solving 'wicked' problems in a digital world.

You will engage in interactive learning activities to develop your skills apply your knowledge to real-world problems. Join us and discover the exciting and solutions-focused world of digital futures and innovation.

This NEW Professional Diploma in Digital Futures and Innovation from the Academy at the triple-accredited Kemmy Business School brings together the latest research and practice in systems and design thinking through an eight-week, immersive, online, studio-based programme - designed to be undertaken as part of your working week.

Co-created with industry, this programme provides a critical space where professionals of all kinds can work through an acute business problem or challenge using the latest tools and techniques in an accelerated, achievement-oriented environment.

Instead of grappling with your business’s strategic plan, project or wicked problem – bring it into the Futures Innovation Studio and inject new energy and thinking under the watchful eye of a Futures Expert and with the support of a professional peer group with similar challenges.

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN...

Turn Strategic Thinking On its Head
Take control of your business context, environment or market territory by learning how to apply cutting-edge systems and design thinking to wicked problems.

Innovation and Problem-Solving
Significantly advance your Professional skills with a toolbox of frameworks, approaches, and processes oriented towards finding innovative solutions to your business challenges. 

Situating and Future Forecasting
Situate yourself and your team within the social and ecological systems comprising your work or business. Navigate and foresee aspects of complex business contexts in constant flux due to digital disruption, sustainability imperatives and increasingly accelerated social, economic and political forces.

Driving Business Change
Develop action plans within your network to shape the environment and market you wish to operate. Position your business, team and yourself for a more successful future.

Working in a Hybrid World
Learn how to perform in a hybrid, studio-learning environment, advancing your systems thinking and design skills, using the latest software tools, step-by-step in a safe learning space with a group of your peers.

8 Weeks. 26 Hours per Week. Problem Solved.

This programme is an intensive, immersive online experience designed to be undertaken as part of your working week. While the time commitment may vary from week to week, a typical week will require around 6 Hours of Direct Contact within the online studio environment and an additional 20 Hours Self-Paced work.

In order to solve your business problem, you will be mentored on creating an academically robust, personalised Futures Portfolio. To achieve this, you will learn how to use and develop several tools and approaches around systems, futures and market shaping. Upon completing your Futures Portfolio, you will have a roadmap to solve your business problem and successfully achieve your Professional Diploma in Futures Innovation.

Module One: Futures Mindset and Competence (Week 1)
In this programme's first stage, you will deepen your appreciation of a futures mindset and understand how you can become the change you wish to create in response to your business problem, organisational challenge or market need. You will develop your own sense of agency in designing and bringing about change, even within complex ecosystems and across multiple stakeholders. You will start to become better at discovering new ways of thinking about complex challenges. You will learn to speculate and imagine alternate futures using various creative tools and approaches. You will develop visual sense-making skills used to understand, develop and communicate your ideas in group settings to achieve more successful and sustainable outcomes.

Module Two: Strategic Foresight and Systems Change (Weeks 2-5)
In this second stage of the programme, you will learn to understand and navigate the challenges, bottlenecks, interactions, interdependencies, and opportunities for change within complex business contexts. You will explore new methods to intervene and address 'wicked problems' in the contemporary context of climate change, resource depletion, economic inequality, social justice, privacy, transparency, and many other issues impacting all business areas today.

Module Three: Designing Market Futures (Weeks 6-8)
In this module, we build on the insights generated in the previous weeks to design and prototype your innovation. Key theoretical ideas and concepts will be introduced in an experiential, immersive learning environment. During the immersive Masterclass week, you will learn about how market systems are shaped, the role of digital technologies and the network dimensions of value co-creation. DMF, as in SFSC, is studio based, emphasising designing for a preferred future market system, identifying specific leverage points for change, and designing the interventions to realise that change. In this module, you will develop your collective roadmap and playbook for change for your business problem.
 

Applicants are normally expected to hold a primary honours degree in a related discipline, or equivalent and have at least 5 years of relevant experience. We would also ask that applicants outline their suitability and interest in the course.

The course admission team may interview applicants at their discretion as part of the admission process.

Alternative Entry Route:

Candidates who do not meet the minimum entry criteria may be considered in accordance with the University's policy on the Recognition of Prior Learning. These candidates will be required to submit a portfolio to demonstrate their technical and/or management experience. Alternative Entry Route applicants will be required to undertake an interview and satisfy the course admission team that they have the experience, motivation and ability to complete and benefit from this course.

What to Include with your Application

  • Photo or Scanned original copy of your transcripts for all years of study. (Graduates of UL need only provide us with their Student ID number.)
  • Photo or Scanned copy of passport to verify ID and full legal name.
  • A copy of your most recent CV.

English Language Requirements:

Applicants who do not have English as their first language may satisfy English Language requirements if your qualifications have been obtained in a country where English is an official language this will suffice

If this is not available, the following additional documents must be provided:

  • English translation of your qualification(s)/transcripts

AND

  • English language competency certificate

For more information Click Here

 

Type Fee Deposit*
EU €3,500 €250
Non-EU €4,750 €600

*The deposit is required once an offer is issued to secure a place.

Please click here for information on funding and scholarships.

“The Digital Futures Innovation postgraduate course was truly transformative, and I would highly recommend it. It challenged me to think beyond the conventional boundaries of a company and understand the broader ecosystem and how it can be shaped towards a preferred future. This has had an immense impact on my daily work as it equipped me with more than just knowledge and methods but also a future thinking mindset.”  Miljan Elcic, Studio Saol (Strategic Design Agency)
 

Frequently Asked Questions

Why Us?
Engaging in Professional Education at the KBS Academy starts with you. Our programmes align with the latest professional and industry needs but are always anchored by international research and best practice. Each Programme is carefully co-designed. Critical academic thinking sits alongside practitioner insights from our longstanding strategic partnerships across the Atlantic Corridor and beyond. In choosing Professional Education with the KBS, you will have a range of flexible learning options designed to complement your personal and work life to empower you to take the next step in your career.

Who should be interested in this Programme?
The Professional Diploma in Futures Innovation is ideally suited to Professionals involved in strategic planning or business transformation, innovators, entrepreneurs, product or market managers, technical thought leaders, business consultants or public servants and policymakers involved in future-shaping initiatives. 

What is the Weekly Learning and Time Commitment?
8-Week Online Immersive Programme. Before starting the Programme, you will participate in an online induction and socialisation exercise. This introduces the virtual learning environment, the course content, your facilitators and peers. This induction proves particularly useful for returning to third-level education after a break of several years, helping ease you into the Programme and make you feel confident and motivated about beginning your work. The Professional Diploma in Futures Innovation is an intensive, immersive online experience designed to be undertaken as part of your working week. While the time commitment may vary from week to week, a typical week will require around 6 Hours of Direct Contact within the online studio environment and an additional 20 Hours Self-Paced work.