


The Master of Engineering Leadership (MEL) in Urban Systems offers a bold approach to professional graduate education in engineering and urban systems. Sixty per cent of the courses you’ll take are technical in nature and offered through the UBC Faculty of Applied Science. The remaining 40 per cent are business courses offered through UBC Sauder’s Robert H. Lee Graduate School.
Many courses use a flipped classroom format. This means you are expected to independently review course content ahead of classroom time, through assigned readings and lecture videos. The classes themselves are then an opportunity for engaged learning – discussing and applying what you’ve learned through case studies, group project work and guest lectures from industry.
While there is some flexibility, if you’re completing the MEL in Urban Systems part time over 24 months, you will generally take your business leadership classes and two technical electives in the first 12-month period. In the second year of the program, you will typically complete your core technical classes. Over the two years of part-time study, you’ll attend classes alongside both full-time and part-time students, giving you enhanced opportunities to build your professional network.
This course aims to provide an understanding of the fundamentals of urban systems analysis and planning (including theory, methods and tools) and how they relate to urban systems engineering, design and management. Examples will be drawn from the international context including advanced and emerging economies. Course content includes demand and supply-side infrastructure planning, population and demand modelling, scenario analysis and long-term strategic planning, urban data, metrics and indicators, and integrated modelling and assessment.
By the end of this course, students will be able to:
This course contributes to the infrastructure management focus area and covers the field of asset management for urban systems. It addresses topics and practices that relate to the operations phase of infrastructure systems, which are a significant component of the professional responsibilities associated with infrastructure, but are rarely addressed in undergraduate engineering programs. Topics include system-specific asset management (road conditions, pipe inspection), maintenance and renewal, data, metrics, indicators and assessment, data sources, performance indicators, assessment, assessing condition and sustainability, multi-objective and multi-criteria decision-making, performance prediction, life-cycle cost analysis (LCA) and sustainability.
By the end of this course, students will be able to:
Understand the behaviour of people and groups and how this applies to management and leadership within professional organizations. This course explores motivation, group dynamics, organizational structure, leadership styles and tools for assessing organizational effectiveness. The course is collaboratively delivered with the Faculty of Commerce and Business Administration.
By the end of this course, students will be able to:
This course provides an introduction to the principles and frameworks of strategic management, as well as concepts surrounding the creation or expansion of innovation capabilities, within organizations. Strategic management involves analysis, planning and execution of initiatives that achieve objectives in support of organizational goals. Innovation generally involves the development of revolutionary new or evolutionary improvements to existing ideas, methods, products, services, or combinations thereof that are adopted. The course will also consider the changing nature of organizational strategy and innovation in an environment of increasing globalization, digitization and automation. Entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship will be recurring themes throughout the course. The course will emphasize actionable lessons and models that students, regardless of their professional or academic backgrounds, can apply in practice to create tangible and valuable outcomes across organizational types, growth stages, and industries.
By the end of this course, students will be able to:
This course ensures familiarity with the full range of technical infrastructure systems that make up urban environments, and helps students understand the interdependencies involved in their design and management. It will provide a survey of systems including water distribution, wastewater and stormwater, solid waste, transportation, energy and data. The course will consider systems’ services and demands, technical alternatives, distribution systems as well as modelling, design, construction, operations and maintenance issues.
By the end of this course, students will be able to:
An asset to the aspiring technical leader, business acumen is knowing how business works and applying that knowledge with the goal of business improvement. This course offers an elevated perspective of how technical skills contribute to building value in a business. The course immerses aspiring technical leaders in the practical application of core business skills and the development of six core business competencies, which are presented as modules: Managerial Accounting, Strategy and Performance, Market Evaluation, Operations Management, Negotiations and Contract Management and Business-Case Building and Valuation. This course is collaboratively delivered with the Faculty of Commerce and Business Administration.
By the end of this course, students will be able to:
The course will cover a wide range of issues that provide the societal context for the design and management of urban systems, including urban systems in society and economy, spatial issues, equity and social justice, governance, policy and regulation, globalization and international development, implications for urban systems, urban and regional economics, infrastructure financing, urban systems and technology, trade-offs, socio-economic-technical systems as well as emerging and green technologies.
By the end of this course, students will be able to:
This course contributes to the infrastructure management focus area and covers advanced economic and risk modelling and provides a detailed understanding of project delivery alternatives. It includes topics in stakeholder practices, including stakeholder engagement, public consultation, partnerships, stakeholder management and buy-in. It also covers project delivery (project delivery options, public-private partnerships (P3), integrated project delivery (IPD) and partnering), as well as modelling, analytical methods and decision support such as economic and risk modelling.
By the end of this course, students will be able to:
This course helps students build skills to lead change that influences the triple bottom line and explores concepts related to sustainability, change agency systems thinking, awareness and perspective for engagement and communication, adaptive leadership, and change dynamics. It also incorporates case studies in organizational and social change. This course is collaboratively delivered with the Faculty of Commerce and Business Administration.
By the end of this course, students will be able to:
All 500-level CIVL and PLAN courses have been pre-approved as technical electives for URSY and students will be able to work with the Program Director and Program Coordinator to find courses that best suit their interests.
Students can choose a UBC Sauder Business Course to gain greater exposure to a particular area of interest. Options include (subject to change):
This course will introduce students to the key concepts and tools needed to understand and effectively manage supply chains and business operations in general. A key concept in this course is the “business process”, and managing and improving such processes.
This course explores the core principles of branding within the context of social and environmental responsibility including healthcare, sustainability and human rights. Fundamental marketing strategies are reinforced as they relate specifically to: 1) non-profits, 2) social marketing designed to change society’s behaviour and 3) cause-related-marketing within thecorporate sector.
This course is designed to make you a better decision maker by helping you understand your weaknesses and build on your strengths in decision-making. This is an integrative course that links material from Economics, Operations, Statistics, Marketing, Psychology, Finance, and Strategy.
*Course offering subject to change.
The Creative Destruction Lab Venture Program is a 3-credit course in entrepreneurship in which students will work with the Creative Destruction Lab West (CDL-West) team to help emerging technology and science focused start-ups. Students will become familiar with the CDL-West companies and will have the opportunity to support with market analysis, customer development, financial analysis, and other core activities related to building early stage start-ups. Students will be provided with visibility into how venture capitalists and angel investors make investment decisions.
2023 Application Deadlines
The online application portal for 2024 admission opens on January 1, 2023.
Round 1: March 30, 2023
Round 2: June 30, 2023
Round 3 (Canadian Citizens, Permanent Residents of Canada, and US citizens only): August 30, 2023
See how to apply section for full details.
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