MSc (BioInnovation)—full-time

The Fellowship programme is based on the recruitment of two elite multi-disciplinary teams, each of four high-calibre Fellows include medical, engineering, business and law graduates. Each Fellow must have demonstrated innovative qualities and excellence in their profession. Each elite team is carefully selected to include creative individuals that can work as part of a team, which are then funded with a stipend and participate in an intensive 10-month programme. The programme is subdivided into three phases: Identify, Invent and Implement.

Identify: The programme begins with a five-week intensive on a single clinical area selected and the process of innovation. The next eight weeks is spent in clinical immersion and identification of needs (usually about 200) in the chosen area. This involves review of surgery, interaction with all care givers and patients. This corresponds to the “Identify” phase.

Invent: The Fellows then characterise these needs into possible solutions involving brainstorming, mentoring by academics, industry leaders and clinicians in the “Invent” phase.

Implement: The final phase is Implementation involving prototyping, regulatory affairs and reimbursement strategies. The Fellows bring about four concepts through to business planning, pitching to venture capitalists and in some cases commercialisation. The selection of the individual Fellows, team composition and dynamics, meaningful clinical engagement and intensive mentoring is paramount to the programme success.

The programme is supported and enabled by collaboration between NUI Galway, University of Limerick, University College Cork, Dublin City University and the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland. Programme support is provided by Enterprise Ireland, Medtronic, Creganna-Tactix, and Lake Region Medical.

Subjects in this course are:-

• Innovation 
• Clinical needs finding to concept generation
• Concept development and implementation
• Business models and commercial strategy
• Product design