Master of Urban Technology
An Inaugural Program at the University of Michigan Center for Innovation in Detroit (UMCI)
With this new degree, Taubman College is signaling an expanded focus: excellence in architecture, urban planning, urban design, and real estate isn’t enough. As a city-maker, you also need new ways of working in the gray areas between those silos—where responsibilities are shared and no single discipline owns the outcome. You will be part of a cohort of emerging leaders across sectors and backgrounds working together to create evidence-based approaches, new business models, and new technology that shape the built environment.
The Master of Urban Technology degree as a 12-month program on business, innovation, and tech for city-makers. The degree will be among the inaugural graduate degrees at the University of Michigan Center for Innovation in Detroit. Hosted in a city known for its reinvention, students will engage the challenges our cities face in real time. You have the opportunity to join our first cohort, beginning in Fall 2027.
Innovation Program for City-Makers
Designed to reinvent the work and business of the built environment, the Master of Urban Technology program will embolden you to rethink complex systems. Learning from both Taubman College faculty with expertise across disciplines and urban changemakers, you’ll learn how to make cities work better across three semesters: Radically Better, Radically Integrated, and Radically Possible.
In the first semester, students analyze urban sustainability challenges, complete a survey of the current landscape of innovation in the built environment, and build a foundation of data science skills. With a focus on evidence-based practices, this semester grounds students in real-world applications and gives them the tools to critically engage these issues.
Learning Journey 1 in Copenhagen provides firsthand learning experiences by exploring the city and meeting with agencies, firms, and community leaders and their projects with the cohort.
The second semester equips students to deepen their analysis of cities by introducing a systems perspective. Through immersion in the regional technology, manufacturing, and data ecosystem, students dig deeper into the industry and its inner workings. Employing analytics and design, students are encouraged to begin exploring creative ideas with cross-disciplinary impact.
Learning Journey 2 in the Midwest allows students to broaden their understanding, introducing new perspectives and voices locally.
The third semester equips students with the skills they need to bring their ideas to life and effect change in the built environment by putting their ideas to the test. Coursework on business models, finance, change management, and a culminating capstone project grow student agency, build an entrepreneurial sensibility, and create impactful solutions that span sectors.
An interdisciplinary course, Urban AI empowers students to learn the costs (e.g., regulatory framework, environmental costs, technology development, equity and safety concerns) and benefits (e.g., improved efficiency, broadened engagement, innovation) of emerging AI applications in urban contexts. You’ll be on the frontlines of strategically using this constantly evolving technology and envisioning new applications for it.
Faculty Experts in Urban Technology
Make Your Future in Detroit
Live in Detroit, the city that invented Motown, techno, and knows how to hustle. Become part of the vibrant life of this growing city.
Reinvention is at the heart of Detroit. It’s a community of grassroots leaders, entrepreneurs, and trailblazers that are ready to take on the world.
Michigan has a legacy of manufacturing and it’s a place where you can scale up your ideas. You have the space to build it, iterate, and make adaptations, surrounded by the maker and production expertise the state offers.
University of Michigan’s Center for Innovation in Detroit is a new location for deep work and focus in Detroit. Students are embedded within a community of like-minded innovators and provided the space they need to co-create and develop new ideas.
Urban Technology in the News
International Students
Since U-M is not yet approved to issue I-20s for the M.U.T. degree program, prospective students requiring an I-20 for the F-1 international student visa are not eligible to apply to the M.U.T. program at this time. Domestic students and non-U.S. citizens who do not plan to study in F-1 status remain eligible to apply to the program for Fall 2027. We hope to welcome F-1 international students to the M.U.T. program once approval is in place, and we will update our online materials accordingly. Sign up to be notified when this changes.
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