Program Overview

Introduction to Bioscience Innovation and Enterprise MSc

The Bioscience Innovation and Enterprise MSc programme is designed for enterprising students who want to work across the science-business interface, building their career at the bioscience-business interface. This programme empowers students to create new social and economic value from bioscience research ideas by learning the skills from entrepreneurship, technology, and management that are most relevant to science innovation.

Programme Overview

The MSc Bioscience Innovation and Enterprise programme was formerly named MSc Bioscience Entrepreneurship. This ground-breaking MSc spans bioscience, business, and innovation, teaching students the language of business to identify new opportunities from science and how to fit potential research solutions to real-world problems.

Who This Course is For

This programme is for individuals who want to build their career at the bioscience-business interface, either in a start-up, as innovators in a research-based organisation, as investors or consultants, or in technology transfer. The expertise gained is a combination of bioscience and broader management knowledge, with cross-disciplinary transferable skills in demand in many different translational and policy settings.

What This Course Will Give You

UCL is embedded in a powerful entrepreneurial ecosystem in London. The programme converges expertise from the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology (IoO), the UCL School of Management, and the UCL School of Pharmacy. Students will discover many opportunities to connect with researchers and innovators to explore ideas, working with and learning from world-leading scientists, clinicians, digital experts, and entrepreneurs.

Career Outcomes

Graduates from this programme have moved on to careers in life sciences consultancy, venture capital, science innovation, technology transfer, and start-ups. Graduates can expect to gain deep system understanding of the challenges of new value creation from science, practical research and translational techniques, and the ability to interrogate science to find innovative opportunities.

Employability

This programme trains students for a career in life sciences consultancy, investment in innovation, technology transfer, clinical trials, start-ups and spinouts, management, regulation, policy, digital health, and more. Students who complete this programme will be equipped with the skills and knowledge to set up a new venture or pursue a professional career in a wide range of biotechnology and biopharmaceutical sectors.

Networking Opportunities

UCL Innovation and Enterprise offers a range of off-curriculum entrepreneurial activities, incubator space, networking opportunities, and practical education. Students also make contact with parts of the wider UCL and London entrepreneurial ecosystem, including start-ups, spinouts, incubators, and networking hubs.

Teaching and Learning

Teaching is primarily module-based in Terms 1 and 2, involving face-to-face lectures and seminars, plus optional applied sessions covering introductory science and business basics. In Term 3, students embark on an integrated science-business research project, identifying and exploring a cutting-edge topic in bioscience and producing a thesis that is a literature-based exploration of the science research integrated with a business case analysis.

Modules

The Bioscience Innovation and Enterprise MSc programme offers a blend of compulsory and optional modules, allowing students to develop a substantial base of key skills, knowledge, and understanding while also having some individual choice with respect to specialist areas. Modules include:

• Digital Health and AI
• Digital Opportunities
• Research and Business Case Project
• Business for Bioscience
• Research in Practice
• Science of Diseases
• Bioscience Startups
• Strategy for Emerging Technology in Life Sciences
  • Optional modules:
    • Entrepreneurial Finance
    • Decision and Risk Analysis
    • Entrepreneurship: Theory and Practice
    • Strategic Project Management
    • Managing Innovation

Placement

Students can find internships and placements in Term 3 as part of the Research Project, applying entrepreneurial skills in applying science to a real-life customer problem.

Accessibility

The department endeavors to make reasonable adjustments for students with disabilities. Details of the accessibility of UCL buildings can be obtained from AccessAble, and further information can also be obtained from the UCL Student Support and Wellbeing Services team.

Fees and Funding

• UK students: Ł16,800 (full-time), Ł8,400 (part-time)
• International students: Ł39,200 (full-time), Ł19,600 (part-time) For a comprehensive list of funding opportunities available at UCL, including funding relevant to nationality, please refer to the Scholarships and Funding website.

Next Steps

When assessing an application, the admissions team would like to learn why the applicant wants to study Bioscience Innovation and Enterprise at graduate level, why they want to study at UCL, what particularly attracts them to the chosen programme, how their academic and professional background meets the demands of this challenging programme, and where they would like to go professionally with their degree. The personal statement is the applicant's opportunity to illustrate whether their reasons for applying match what the programme will deliver.