Society today needs innovative specialists in the field of Research and Development who can work in multidisciplinary teams and adapt to current developments in the area of Food and Food Production. In our country, the agro-food sector accounts for 15% of all net sales and yet the figures given by Spain’s National Institute of Statistics for joint company-university R&D projects clearly demonstrate that in food and beverages, the degree of research investment falls below the global average taken in all the sectors together. R&D initiatives not only require scientists and technical experts to work together but also to be able to go beyond the strictly scientific and technical: such professionals need the skills to convey complex concepts in non-specialist language to members of research teams, they need to be familiar with the marketing, finance, logistics and commercialisation of food products, and to apply market needs analysis to their own professional area of work. The analysis and study of market forecasts and the potential success of any given product show how necessary it has become for the sector to integrate its various fields of activity and address these fields simultaneously, from the dynamics of consumer sciences and marketing techniques to such concerns as nutrition, health and technology. It has been demonstrated that when a product attempts to rest only on the laurels of its image or name and is not accompanied by a series of carefully studied features catering to such concerns as sensory quality, presentation and safety, then it cannot be marketed. For this reason, professionals in development and innovation must always be able to monitor the interaction of these factors with those more proper to technology.

Because this Master in Development and Innovation in Foods is designed for students to assimilate the principles operating in the various types of R&D activity in the food industry, the course covers two study areas: on the one hand, it teaches basic subjects such as Nutrition, Chemical Composition and Physical Properties, Food Quality and Safety, Food Technology, and Design and Formulation; but on the other, it also offers students the opportunity to apply the principles they have studied and acquire the professional skills they will need in practical R&D scenarios through a series of complementary subjects, including Legal Regulation and the Protection of Intellectual and Industrial Property Rights, Project and Documentation Management, Cost Evaluation and Product Profitability, and Market Evaluation and Marketing Strategies.