Our work covers three main areas:
- Industrial project management, which covers planning and management of technology and product development and innovation activities in project-based organisations.
- Innovation, which includes studies of industrial emergence and renewal, technology and innovation strategies and innovation management in large and small companies and organisations.
- Entrepreneurship, business planning and regional development, which focuses on early development phases in knowledge-intensive businesses.
Leadership and organisation are recurrent themes in all three areas – both in education and in research.
Research
Research is conducted in four main research fields. Within the field of Innovation Studies, we study innovation processes at an aggregate level: in technology fields, industries and sectors. Within the field of Technology Management, we study the relationship between technology and innovation strategies of industrial companies and long-term technological and strategic change processes. Within the field of Innovation Management, we study how innovation processes can be organised and lead within and between companies. Within the field of Entrepreneurship and Regional Development, we study early idea development and young, emerging firms as well as the role of universities and public support systems in national and regional development.
Undergraduate and graduate education
We teach within the subject areas of industrial management, leadership, innovation management and product development, project management, entrepreneurship, idea development and work science.
Our courses are student-centered, where the role of the teacher is to create a fruitful and inspiring study environment with the intended learning outcomes in focus. We design learning processes by combining personal development with research-based analyses and studies of and at companies. Our pedagogy is based on active learning and we use, among other things, experience- and theory-based exercises, in which students get to apply the knowledge they have gained. This requires our students to take a large responsibility for their own learning – as well as the learning of their classmates – and see themselves as co-creators of the knowledge that is developed in the courses.
Collaboration with industry and public sector organisations
PIE’s ambition is to support decision-making in industry, government agencies, and other organisations, such as incubators and industry associations. We collaborate with partners outside academia, both in research projects and in contract education. We also diffuse our research results through workshops, seminars and publications in both scientific and popular media.
Contract education
PIE has a long history of managing contract education, especially in collaboration with the Centre of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) and the business network SMIL, where Entrepreneurship, Development and Management Programmes are offered with the purpose of stimulating development and growth in technology- and knowledge-intensive companies.
PIE collaborates with a range of different organisations. Throughout the years, we have participated in a number of collaborative education projects together with, e.g. Saab Automobile, Scania, FOI and several municipalities and regional councils.
