The course is organized into weekly units for 1500 hours (60 ECTS credits) – including 286 hours of face-to-face lectures and 132 hours of laboratory and project work with companies, complemented by individual and teamwork plus 300 hours of internship at private companies.

The course is structured in two parts: the first part to provide participants with fundamental concepts to master the following subjects: Start-up & Entrepreneurial mindset, Business Model Design for continuous innovation, Agile Methods & Change Management, Agri-food Innovation, Social Innovation, Communication & Marketing for Startups.

In the second part (project works), an innovative solution for a selected company will be developed using the Open Innovation process and the Design Thinking methodology. The internship phase is closely related to the activities developed during the project works and will be carried out in the following Italian companies: Timac agro-Italia Groupe Roullier; ANDRIANI SpA; Agriverse; Vallefiorita; Tersan; Planetek, Putignano srl; Greenblu. The working language is English.

The Master's course objective is to train a new generation of innovation managers. More specifically, through applying a new mindset and new methodological approaches (Design Thinking, Lean Startup), students are accompanied through the creation, prototype development, and enhancement of innovative entrepreneurship ideas (new products/services, adoption of new production processes, development of new markets) in the agri-food field, from production chain to food consumption, health aspects and circular economy.

Training will focus on both technological innovation and social innovation for a new business generation. They will adopt a new approach in carrying out activities based on learning by doing with a strong interaction with startups and successful businesses that will be involved in all the modules of the Master programme.

In terms of job placement, the Master course addresses 3 essential needs:

Self-entrepreneurship through the study and application of methodologies and approaches to build startups;
Training expert in the management of innovation processes (innovation manager);
Training specialists in knowledge transfer within institutions and organizations responsible for enhancing research results between research organizations and the business sector (innovation broker).