New study program as of fall 2018: Innovation Management (MSc) and Master of Innovation Management (MINN).

Choice between MSc and Qualification at master level

Students can choose between a program structure that leads to an MSc degree and a program structure as qualification at master level (MINN). Both structures include 90 ECTS credits. Full-time study includes three terms: fall, spring, and summer term.

MSc degree

Students finish 60 ECTS credits in courses according to the program structure and a 30 ECTS-credit master‘s thesis.

Qualification at master level (MINN)

Students finish 90 ECTS credits in courses according to the program structure. Students have the opportunity to take an internship of up to 15 ECTS credits.

Dean’s Selection Grant for RU Department of Business Administration  graduate students

The recipient of the Dean´s Selection Grant pays undergraduate fees instead of graduate fees. Students with the highest grade in a graduate programme each semester are applicable. In order to receive the award students must complete 30 ECTS units per semester and follow the programme structure.

It is argued we are witness to the largest economic, technological, and social changes in modern history, which is already revolutionizing both our jobs and personal lives. Future careers, products/services and organisations are largely unknown, as they do not yet exist. It is no longer enough only to prepare for currently defined roles.

University graduates, whether they want to start their own business or become managers in established organisations, need to embrace the change as a source of new opportunities. They need to have the ability to take initiative, inspire others and manage collaborative efforts towards innovation.

Innovation is at the core of any organization: its creation, sustainability, and growth. The master’s program in Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management prepares students to lead innovation and entrepreneurial processes in various organisational settings, including of established corporations, start-ups, public organizations, and NGOs.

The focus of staff research is on innovation and entrepreneurship, finance and economics, corporate governance, marketing and human resource management. RU Department of Business Administration is committed to excellence in research and academic staff collaborates with researchers in other fields such as Computer Science and Psychology, within RU and internationally. Students also benefit from the Department’s extensive network of international professors and guest lecturers from the business community.

A great opportunity

By completing an internship a student’s knowledge, skills and abilities are enhanced. This is usually done through hands-on projects, and so, graduates are better prepared for their future careers. Students are assigned a supervisor within a company or institution and a full-time faculty member as a supervisor during the period of the internship.

Credits

Students can complete 7,5 ECTS, 15 ECTS, or 30 ECTS, depending on the length of the internship. Internships of 30 ECTS are only available for students that complete their internship abroad. Generally, internships are unpaid.

Students can choose between three options:

Option 1: Students apply for internship positions arranged by RU Department of Business Administration with Icelandic companies.

Option 2: Students arrange an internship with companies themselves and get the internship approved by RU Department of Business Administration.

Option 3: Students find international internships themselves, and get it approved by RU Department of Business Administration.

Examples of companies and institutions where students have completed their internships

Icelandair Group • Icelandair London • Icelandair Frankfurt • Össur • KPMG• Deloitte • PwC • E&Y • Landspítalinn • Síminn • Orkuveita Reykjavíkur • NOVA • Vodafone • Vífilfell • Ölgerðin • Virðing • Sameinaði lífeyrissjóðurinn • Pipar TBWA • Icelandair • Landsvirkjun • Advania • Alvogen • Landsbankinn • Mannvit • Nýherji • Reiknistofa bankanna • Eik fasteignafélag • Grant Thornton • Glamour • BDO • Sjóvá • Canadian Embassy • Viðskiptaráð • FESTI • Samtök Iðnaðarins.

Internships abroad

Students can apply for an Erasmus grant to complete an internship in Europe for 2-12 months. Students who have previously been in the Erasmus exchange program can apply for funding for an internship.

The amount of the grant depends on the destination, but is in the range of 450 to 550 € a month. Students also receive a travel grant, in the range 275- € 1,100 depending on the destination.

The program is offered as full-time study program; part-time study is allowed. Maximum study period: 6 semesters; if the study period exceeds this limit, the student must apply for re-enrollment.

Choice between MSc and Qualification at master level

Students can choose between a program structure that leads to an MSc degree and a program structure as qualification at master level (MINN). Both structures include 90 ECTS credits. Full-time study includes three terms: fall, spring, and summer term.

IT facilities

Our IT Services provide a range of computer facilities to help you study. IT suites are located across campus – many with 24-hour access.

IT facilities also include:

• Wireless network
• Extensive printing facilities
• Adapted PCs for students with disabilities or additional learning needs

Student study areas

Students have 24-hour access, during term time, to group rooms and private study desks. There is a especially dedicated study area for Graduate students.

Student Union
The University of Reykjavik Student’s Union is the focus of many student activities on campus.

Sports Facilities
In the basement of the university, World Class runs a gym which offers discounts to students.

Food

There are three shops and cafés in the building that sell food and beverages to students.

• Kaffitár sells a selection of coffee drinks, light snacks and bakery products.
• Malið serves hot food everyday, plus snacks and refreshments.
• The University shop (Haskolabudin) sells groceries, household items and snacks.

Reykjavik University Campus

Set in one of the most beautiful areas of Reykjavik right next to Iceland’s only geothermal beach, the newly built campus offers students modern first-rate facilities. The building has well equipped classrooms and students have 24-hour access to the spacious study facilities.

Environmentally conscious

The campus is one of Iceland’s most automated buildings designed to provide an environment optimal for working using the lowest amount of energy.

Automated blinds and windows

In the main areas of the building the blinds and windows are controlled by a weather station positioned on top of the University roof. The weather station collects information about wind direction and outside temperature adjusting windows accordingly, and blinds are automated to ensure direct sunlight does not disturb students working.

A breath of fresh air

The University building is constantly ventilated with natural fresh air using the NAVENT system. Fresh air is drawn into the building and then pumped into the rooms. Special CO2 monitors ensure the correct levels of oxygen in the rooms. Heaters ensure that the air pumped into the rooms maintains the correct air temperature. In the summer time the air pumps drag warm air from the building and pump fresh and cooler air in its place.

Intelligent lighting system

Every light in the University has its own IP address and is controlled by the automated system. Light sensors ensure lighting is only on when rooms are in use. Large windows let in natural daylight which creates a more pleasant working environment.

Beautiful surroundings

Our campus is in a unique position of being set in one of the most popular outdoor areas of Reykjavik.

• The University of Reykjavik is located right next to Iceland’s only geothermal beach,  Nauthólsvík. Students can enjoy swimming in the geothermally heated sea, or relax in the hot tub on the beach.
• Right next to the campus is the most environmentally friendly restaurant in Reykjavik, Nauthóll, which has been awarded the Nordic Environmental “Svan Certificate,”  and was the first restaurant in Reykjavik to receive this certification.
• Students can enjoy the many foot and bicycle paths in the neighbouring forest.
• Students can visit the nearby Perlan situated on top of the city’s geothermal storage tanks.

Work is currently underway renovating the building and setting up the exhibition. “People living in Iceland, as well as tourists or short-term residents studying or working here. The exhibition is also designed to appeal to different age groups and we will be producing teaching material related to the exhibition for both compulsory school and upper secondary school students,” says Sigrún Alba. image/Kristinn Ingvarsson

With the U.S. poised to invest $50 billion in chip technologies, researchers prepare to create an infrastructure to accelerate how lab discoveries become practical technologies.

Found in virtually every gadget powered by batteries or electricity, so ubiquitous as to be taken for granted, is that bedrock of our technological era, the semiconductor chip.

But last year, when automotive assembly lines stalled for lack of chips to build everything from anti-lock brakes to automatic door locks, public officials began to recognize the crisis that research and industrial scientists had seen coming.

“The world isn’t just facing production shortages for the chips we rely on today,” said Stanford electrical engineering Professor H.-S. Philip Wong

. “We aren’t moving fast enough to create the next generation of semiconductors that we’ll need to broaden educational and economic opportunities, conserve energy and natural resources, and provide better and fairer access to technology.”

That sense of urgency and excitement suffused a recent virtual conference
hosted by Stanford’s SystemX Alliance
, which has, in various incarnations over the last 40 years, brought academic and industrial researchers together to develop new chip technologies and systems built on them. Prominent leaders of companies and academia presented visions for future generations of semiconductor technologies that will meet the insatiable demands for broadly accessible, energy-efficient computing. In many ways, Wong said, what we are seeing is less a crisis, but rather a huge opportunity.

The June event – Future Directions of Semiconductor Technology – was held as the Senate passed, and the House of Representatives is poised to take up, a bill that President Joe Biden is eager to sign that will invest roughly $50 billion in new fabs, or semiconductor fabrication plants, as well as fund research into developing new chip technologies and applications.

The bipartisan consensus to boost the chip sector, which first emerged during the previous administration, gathered force as the auto plant shutdowns caught lawmakers’ attention and the Biden administration began to define infrastructure as silicon and circuitry as well as concrete and steel.

Wong said Stanford could help lead on an initiative that will emerge from this chip stimulus act – creating a national “lab to fab” infrastructure to reduce the friction that hampers translation of academic discoveries into practical technologies. Until now, the U.S. has relied on startups to commercialize discoveries, but as electronic systems become ever more complex, the costs and time of this scale-up process are impeding innovation.

“Fragments of lab-to-fab translation processes exist in other places around the world, but they are conspicuously absent in the United States,” Wong said.

Jennifer Dionne
, Stanford’s senior associate vice provost for research platforms and shared facilities, said an interdisciplinary research culture is critical to creating lab-to-fab pathways, and in that arena, Stanford excels. She is helping Stanford bring together not just the facilities but researchers from across the university to foster the collaborations that lead to fresh ideas. “Solving society’s challenges requires outstanding facilities that bridge departmental and school boundaries and enable the university to fulfill its missions of research, education and the translation of discoveries into beneficial products and technologies,” said Dionne, who is also an associate professor of materials science and engineering.

Training the PhD students whose ideas will help propel semiconductor technologies forward is another important area where Stanford can contribute, says Debbie Senesky
, associate professor of aeronautics and astronautics and, by courtesy, of electrical engineering. Senesky recently stepped in to lead nano@stanford

, which is part of a network of facilities funded by the National Science Foundation to expose students to the tools of discovery. In that role, Senesky sets the research agenda for this next generation of chip experts.

“Our facilities serve as a spectacular sandbox for education and outreach on advanced concepts in nanotechnology,” Senesky said. “Students actively learn via hands-on training on the most advanced scientific tools. Students can deposit, etch and see atoms using our nanofabrication and nanocharacterization tools, setting them up for careers in Silicon Valley and beyond. Also, students at the K-12 level get exposed to nanotechnology from the activities in our facilities.”

Wong wants researchers across campus to realize that this next phase of semiconductor discovery will transcend electrical engineering and involve every discipline that can imagine new ways to build on foundational semiconductor technology to further its own research.

For example, Stanford SystemX Alliance recently teamed up with the Precourt Institute for Energy on a Pioneering Project Grant to seed ideas

on energy-efficient computing, aiming to solve the demand side of the worldwide energy challenge. Wong said other Stanford educators are looking for ways to raise the profile of semiconductor research among aspiring STEM students.

Electrical engineering Professor Boris Murmann
is working with the professional society, IEEE, to democratize chip design
such that one day even a high school student will be able to design a chip and build a system she can sell on the internet. Professor Priyanka Raina
was already pilot testing just such a democratization initiative for graduate students and senior undergraduates in her EE272B

class at Stanford. For the students in the class, it was their first experience designing a chip. Raina, assistant professor of electrical engineering and, by courtesy, of computer science, now hopes to help with translating these design skills for college-bound high school learners.

“Stanford is being presented with an opportunity to make a big impact on society at a global scale and in a field that the world already associates with us,” Wong said. “And it isn’t just chips as they used to be. I spent the last few weeks learning from people here who are working on a technology called biofilms to process data using bacteria. Others are experimenting with DNA systems that can store a trillion gigabytes of data. The funding agencies are wide open to new ideas.”