Key facts
Qualification
Level 9 Professional Diploma (20 ECTS)
Course dates
We are now accepting registrations of interest for the Autumn ’23 intake of this programme; please register your interest via the link above.
How it's delivered
Module 1 – Creativity & Innovation
Module 2 – Sustainability: Environmental Drivers Of Innovation
Module 3 – Sustainability: Human Drivers in Innovation
Module 4 – Innovation for Sustainability Solutions
Fees and Funding
€2,600 (EU) or €2,600 (Non-EU)
100% or 90% funded for eligible applicants through the HEA Springboard+ Initiative.
FREE for eligible jobseekers: those who have received eligible DEASP Payments.
FREE for returners to work and carers.
90% subsidised (student pays €260) eligible individuals in employment or self-employment, and the formerly self-employed.
See https://springboardcourses.ie/eligibility for eligibility criteria.
What Industry Says
“We need to educate and arm our frontline people. Our marketing team now lead on sustainable packaging, our trading team on supply chain impact, energy usage is a key metric for our store development team.” – John Curran, Head of Sustainability, Musgraves
“Innovation and Sustainability go hand in hand.” – Cormac Madden, Environment and Sustainability Manager, ESB
Deadline
Deadline for applications has now closed.
Overview
This course is ideal for mid to senior managers across all sectors, wanting, or already with responsibility for sustainability within their team, department, organisation but without a background in innovation or sustainability.
The opportunity to work on real world projects gives a chance to up-skill and incorporates relevant workplace projects. This course gives students the knowledge, skills and mindset to translate sustainability challenges into opportunities using innovation. It runs live online over eight months and students will gain a range of career skills including:
Key Highlights:
- An introduction to key sustainability concepts, terms, models and policy within an Irish context;
- Applied sustainability skills (Carbon Footprinting, Climate Adaptation Planning, Sustainability Reporting);
- Innovation and Design Thinking;
- Transversal skills: Creativity, teamwork, communications, learning agility;
- A capstone two and a half month Innovation for Sustainability project in the workplace/community.
A key focus of this programme is to enable students to help organisations (enterprise and non-profit) integrate sustainability into their strategy, operations and governance, ensuring that sustainability will be grounded as a source of innovation for organisations driving social and economic change.
For example, the module Sustainability: Human Drivers of Innovation looks at the societal drivers for sustainability. Students will learn about the changes in policy, EU regulation and societal values that are requiring organisations to respond to calls to act on climate change, gender equality, diversity, poverty, and other issues. Through the programme students will learn to apply design thinking methodology to sustainability, to achieve innovation in products, processes and behaviour-changes.
Students will gain a holistic view of sustainability which includes the three pillars People, Planet, and Prosperity – to innovate in organisations and enable sustainable development
Our funders
Who is it for?
This course is ideal for mid to senior managers across all sectors, wanting, or already with responsibility for sustainability within their team/department/organisation but without a background in innovation or sustainability.
You might be:
- Working in a large corporate or an SME
- Making the leap into leadership
- Unemployed or formerly self-employed
- A carer or returner to work
- A career changer
You’ll need a minimum honours degree (Level 8) qualification.
OR applicants with 5+ years of relevant employment history can apply under UCD’s Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) policy.
Springboard+ eligibility requirements.
English language requirements.
Keen to start seeing the world differently?
Course structure
Course delivery and timings
This fully immersive learning experience is delivered remotely through a combination of live online sessions, self-directed and reflective learning, project work and mentoring sessions.
You’ll learn from Innovation Academy’s inspiring educators and leading industry guest speakers from the comfort of your home or office. Nevertheless, this is a very social course, and you’ll collaborate with your fellow innovators on practical team challenges and projects.
The course is split into 4 modules, totalling 20 ECTS –
Module 1 – Creativity & Innovation
Learners develop their innovation skills and creative mindset. They learn and apply the five stages of Design Thinking (empathy, definition, ideation, prototyping and testing) to create innovative services and products for a real-world organisation.
Module 2 – Sustainability: Environmental Drivers Of Innovation
Learners gain a broad overview of sustainability (terms, climate models, frameworks, SDGs) and explore how major environmental and social issues are shaping products and services and changing how organisations operate to create value.
Module 3 – Sustainability: Human Drivers in Innovation
Learners explore how the demands of key stakeholders (communities, customers, employees, investors, government) drive innovation for sustainability and gain skills to translate insights to outcomes (inc the principles of sustainability reporting).
Module 4 – Innovation for Sustainability Solutions
Learners develop job-ready skills in sustainability and innovation and benefit their organisation or community by tackling real-world sustainability problems identified by their employer or host company and mentored ‘on the job’ learning.
The first module is delivered completely in a five-day block from 0930 to 1.30pm with self directed learning in the afternoon.
Modules two and three are run weekly in the evenings with a final class on a Saturday.
Module 4 runs over 4 months. It combines external project work culminating in the Action Learning Project presentations. Students undertake a project related to their own context and agreed with your facilitator.
As the programme involves continuous assessment, students must attend all class sessions.
- Why choose us?
- Learning outcomes
- How to apply
- Assessment
- Who leads this course?
- Career opportunities
UCD Innovation Academy sits at the cutting-edge of education in Ireland, and the world.
We’ve been challenging students to see the world differently since 2010, when we became one of the first universities to offer experiential learning experiences.
Our team has been innovating ever since, shaping and refining our courses with input from some of the world’s best. Thousands of students have passed through the Academy, and each one has played their part in making our courses better and better. We have countless examples of our alumni accelerating their careers and changing the world from within organisations or as entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurs.
Students at the Academy also have access to the latest technology to support their creativity. The IA MakerSpace provides a playground for innovation, testing, and prototyping to bring your ideas to life.
As if that wasn’t enough, we’re a part of UCD, ranked among the top 1% of higher education institutions in the world. We’re Ireland’s global university and ranked Ireland’s best for graduate employability. And we currently have Professor Sir Mark Welland, Deputy Vice-Chancellor, University of Cambridge acting as our External Examiner.
Here at the Innovation Academy we have everything you need for a learning experience you’ll never forget.
By the end of the Professional Diploma in Innovation for Sustainability, you will:
- Know key sustainability concepts, terms, models and policy within an Irish context;
- Know applied green skills including Carbon Footprinting, Climate Adaptation Planning, Sustainability Reporting;
- Put Innovation and Design Thinking into practice;
- Develop transversal skills including creativity, teamwork, communications, learning agility;
- Gain an innovator’s mindset;
- Build creative confidence via practical challenges;
- Build your CV with a substantial innovation project module;
- Build a peer network of friends, contacts and collaborators;
- Leave ready to apply your new skills to progress your career;
- Have a Level 9 qualification from UCD.
This course is open for applications.
Below is a summary of the application procedures and funding eligibility for this course. These are subject to change.
The full document requirements are on Springboard+. Please read them carefully.
Supporting documents
You will need to upload some supporting documents as part of your application:
- Current CV and Letter of Motivation.
- Your academic transcript or parchment to show you have a level 8 qualification. Alternatively, you can apply through Recognition of Prior Learning. See ‘Entry Requirements’ for full details.
- For full or part-funded places, we’ll need to see proof of your relevant employment status as outlined in Springboard+ Eligibility Guidelines.
- Your passport if you are an EU, EEA, UK, or Swiss citizen. Or a Stamp 4 Visa for 3 years prior to the course start date if you are applying under a status other than ‘Unemployed in receipt of an eligible DEASP Payment’.
- Applicants who are employed, formerly self-employed, self-employed or in receipt of Covid-19 Pandemic Unemployment Payment, must demonstrates that you have been resident in an EU/EEA/Swiss/UK for three of the past five years.
- If English is not your first language an English language qualification is required. Click HERE for full English Language Requirements for UCD.
Funding
FREE for eligible jobseekers: those who have received eligible DEASP Payments.
FREE for returners to work and carers.
90% subsidised (student pays €260) for eligible individuals in employment or self-employment, and the formerly self-employed.
As the course involves continuous assessment, students must attend all class sessions.
The rest of the course is assessed through a combination of individual and team assignments, project reports and presentations.
All courses at the Innovation Academy are developed and facilitated by our exceptional team of educators.
The team boasts a wealth of experience from a wide variety of backgrounds. They are international entrepreneurs, doctors (both medical and academic), robotics experts, storytellers, conservationists, campaigners, and creatives.
What they all have in common is their love of the innovative, learning-by-doing approach to learning and their devotion to delivering a world-class student experience.
Read more about the people behind this course.
Demand for green skills is already outstripping supply.
This course will teach you the skills you need to become your organisation’s champion in innovation for sustainability.
UCD Innovation Academy is delighted to partner with Accredible in the provision of digital credentials across all of our programmes. We believe lifelong learning should be encouraged and celebrated, and digital credentials will allow you to share your accomplishments on LinkedIn and other online platforms to promote among your network.
Students who successfully complete and pass this programme will receive a digital certificate of completion. The certificate is issued online once the UCD Exam Board sits and approves your grade. UCD Exam Board sits three times a year (Autumn, Spring, Summer trimester) and approval times vary depending on the Exam Board calendar. The certificate of completion is separate to the official parchment, which arrives in hard copy at a later date.
Real world relevance, including relevance for your career, is an integral part of this programme, supported through applied real world learning including enterprise challenges from real organisations, ongoing engagement with the world of work through external enterprise speakers, a teaching team who all bring substantial enterprise experience and a programme director with over 20 years experience in sustainability across education and enterprise.
This entire course is designed to equip participants with the job-ready skills that will help them manage innovation for sustainability with an SME, start-up, or large enterprise.
The real-world challenges that participants encounter during this course are designed to be applied to their current or future work environment, working in multi-disciplinary teams, with limited resources to prototype solutions and pitch them to senior decision-makers. If you’re in employment, this is ensures real time impact for your organisation from the programme.
The development of transversal skills is a vital part of the job readiness component of this programme: creativity, teamwork, communication skills and learning agility are threaded throughout the programme.
