For interested parties

The University of Turku, Turku School of Economics and the University of Passau, School of Business, Economics and Information Systems coordinate their Master’s degree programmes in Information Systems in order to enable outstanding students to obtain a degree from each institution.

The programme focuses on topics in Digital Enterprise Management (DEMA), which is comprised by two modules:

1. The Networked Business & Digital Ecosystems module focuses on economic and technical aspects of today’s networked and digital business environment. Students learn about digitally enabled organizations, and how they benefit from advanced data management and digitalized, networked business platforms to improve performance of networked business ecosystems. Moreover, they learn about economic and technical aspects of digital ecosystems as well as information and communication technologies.
2. The IT Management module focuses on the design, delivery, and implementation of IT services, applications and infrastructure to align business needs and IT security requirements in networked organizations. Special attention is paid to the management of complexity of IT-assets and networked business by means of enterprise architecture management and governance. The students learn to define IS services to support business processes and knowledge sharing, and to manage multi-party implementation projects. Students also develop their ability to understand the significance of business networks for software industry as well as methods to address ethical and responsibility issues related global businesses.

The programme offers a great opportunity for excellent students to develop a unique and outstanding academic profile, as it combines the strengths of two distinguished Master’s programmes at the University of Turku (focusing on IT-Management) and the University of Passau (focusing on Networked Business & Digital Ecosystems), respectively.

The Digital Enterprise Management (DEMA) double-degree programme is designed for students who want to pursue an international career at the interface of IT, business and management. Graduates’ expertise will be key for translating strategic and operational needs into better information systems for enterprises and networked businesses. In short, graduates learn how to strategically apply IT to analyse design and support business change and transformation and thus enable a company to achieve its strategic, tactical, and operational goals. Upon completion of the DEMA programme the student is able to:

• understand and implement modern Internet-based technologies
• understand the information systems complex in private and public organizations
• understand the role of IS in networked organizations and in digitalization
• understand the opportunities of IS in small and medium enterprises, and their role in networked business
• implement information systems and changes of operations in organizations and business networks
• manage the information resources and make grounded and sound decisions improving profitability of business
• identify methods for the analysis and transformation of business processes to facilitate better and sustainable performance improvement of digitalization.

The double degree programme is offered for excellent students with a focus on Information Systems that are already enrolled in one of the following programmes:

• At the University of Passau for students in Masterstudiengang Wirtschaftsinformatik (M.Sc. lnformation Systems) or Masterstudiengang Business Administration (M.Sc. in Business Administration and majoring in lnformation Systems) programmes.
• At the University of Turku for students in Master of Science (majoring in lnformation Systems) and the Master of Science in Economics and Business Administration (majoring in lnformation Systems).

The students, who successfully completed the double degree study programme will receive a Master’s degree from each partner institution. The delivered diplomas include at least a transcript of records.

The degrees that double degree students will receive from the partner university, in addition to the degree of their home university, are, respectively:

• University of Passau: 
  Master of Science in Wirtschaftsinformatik (lnformation Systems) from the Faculty of Business Administration and Economics.
• University of Turku: 
  Master of Science from the Turku School of Economics, Master's Degree Programme in Global IT Management, Digital Enterprise Management with a major in Information Systems Science.

The programme is organized such that students pursue the course programme in their first academic year (winter and summer semester: October – July) at the University of Passau with a focus on networked business and digital ecosystems. Subsequently, students pursue their second academic year (periods I-IV: September – May) at the University of Turku with a focus on IT-Management. Thus, German and Finnish students from the same cohort will pursue the programme together during the entire duration of the course programme. After completion of the course programme, students will write their master’s thesis at their respective home university.

For Passau students there is also the possibility to start the programme in a summer semester (April - July) at the University of Passau. Then students continue the programme at the University of Turku (periods I-IV: September - May). Afterwards students study another semester (October - February) at the University of Passau to complete the course programme by writing their master's thesis.

In total at least 40 ECTS in courses (NOT including seminar and master’s thesis) have to be taken at each partner university.

Students will have to fulfil individually the requirements of each university’s master’s programme (120 ECTS each) in order to be awarded the double degree. Generally, courses taken at either university will count towards both degree programmes. To ensure eligibility of courses and a coherent study programme, students have to devise a study plan, which must be approved by the Board of the double-degree programme. 

Masters’ thesis and seminar will be jointly supervised by academic partners at both universities, but each must be written at the home university. Both, seminar and masters’ thesis need to be written in English.

Students will pay tuition and admission or registration fees to their home institution according to the local rules. Within the Erasmus+ programme students are exempt from paying fees at the partner university. This does not apply for students from Non-EU-countries, for details see: https://www.utu.fi/en/study-at-utu/scholarships-and-tuition-fees.