Urban Digital Transformation & Innovation

Digital technology has disrupted urban development and profoundly reshaped the way cities operate. This master track focuses on how digital innovation and transformation impact urban socio-economic development and governance.
The Urban Digital Transformation & Innovation: Governance and Economics of Cities programme is a master track within the MSc in Urban Management and Development. The programme focuses on digital innovation and transformation and their impact on urban economic development and governance. Organised in two parts, the programme draws on the fields of economics, technology and innovation, governance and development, social and economic geography, and urban planning. In the programme’s first part, students discuss both socio-economic and socio-technological transformation. The effects of digital transformations on governance and economics are illustrated with examples of smart and micro-mobility, smart grids, new forms of production and energy transition, future-proof public transportation, and labour markets, among others. The programme pays equal attention to the complex process of governing digital innovation, its role in creating or reducing inequalities in cities, and digital technology ethics. In the second part of the programme, students have the opportunity to focus on one of two overarching topics: economic development or algorithmic governance.