Want to start something?

Professor Craig Mudge

Studies in entrepreneurship and innovation are a valuable addition to any business or law postgrad degree, whether you’re thinking of one day starting your own company or creating a new product for someone else’s.

The Macquarie Institute for Innovation (MII) will be offering postgraduate subjects for the first time in 2006. Director of the Institute, Professor Craig Mudge, says they will appeal to “anyone who wants to start something”.

“Our students will be those who see an opportunity or unmet need, come up with a solution to it and then think ‘how can I start this?’,” Mudge says. “If they’re working in a big organisation or a government department they can try and start it there, or it may be better to go out and start it themselves. Their enterprise might be in electronics, or in the life sciences, or it might even be a not-for-profit.

“They’ll need to get resources on board, employ other people, attract financial help and interest partners. In order to do all this they’ll first need to learn how to describe the unmet need and their solution for it, which is not as hard as you might think.”

Study options

Six postgraduate subjects will be offered in 2006, including units on business and intellectual property management, resourcing entrepreneurial activities and specialist subjects on entrepreneurship within the fields of technology, biotechnology and society.

These subjects can be taken in one of four ways. Firstly, completion of three of the units will qualify the student for a Postgraduate Certificate in Entrepreneurship.

Another option is to take one or two subjects as part of another postgraduate coursework program at Macquarie, while Master of Commerce in Business students can choose to study four approved units as an entrepreneurship sub-speciality within their degree. There is also the opportunity for those seeking professional development to enrol in any of the units as a non-award subject.

Further units are planned for 2007, including one on global marketing which will focus on the difficult task of marketing a new product or service overseas and deciding on who to partner with, and what distribution channels to use.

Practical, international and connected

One of the great benefits of taking postgrad units at MII is the fact that all teachers are experts in their field who have hands-on, relevant experience in the world of business. Mudge himself has spent the past 10 years in Silicon Valley, California, where he brought his years of operational experience both in technology companies and world-class research centres to help clients.   

“Our teaching mantra is ‘practical, international and connected’,” Mudge explains. “A requirement of all our academic staff is that they’ve had an operating role in a company, and we’ll be using expert industry practitioners to teach part of each unit – for example lawyers who specialise in intellectual property, people who run big research labs, or partners in venture capital firms, as well as successful entrepreneurs.”

For more information on the Institute and its courses, check out their website at www.mii.mq.edu.au

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