JJUA55217U Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Tax Law - NOTE: THE COURSE IS CANCELLED IN THE SPRING SEMESTER 2019

The course can be described as a deeply professional innovation and development project, where the students in close contact with researchers and practicioners from the industry learn to think innovatively and entrepreneurial while using their legal competences. Innovation and entrepreneurship is defined in the broadest possible sense as value creation for others e.g. economic, social, cultural or societal valuecreation. Multidisciplinarity is also innovation.
The students receive supervision and sparring from a researcher or practitioner. The students write a project, which will result in an article that is both scientific and innovative. Examples of such articles are multidisciplinary articles that combine tax law with other areas of law or with other disciplines e.g. mathematics, theology, information science etc. Other examples could be that new or alternative methods, theories or solutions are applied to tax problems. Since it is a requirement to have a tax related angle or perspective, it would be sufficient to deal with some tax related aspects, consequences for tax revenue, tax policy issues etc.
The student chooses an area and a topic for his/her article, and independently identifies and articulates the main research question(s). The student actively and independently works with the article, also regarding source search, methodological and legal theoretical considerations, analysis, reasoning, judgment, scientific and innovative communication, etc. The student is expected to coherently integrate innovation and entrepreneurship in the research article.
A supervision and feedback process facilitates the students’ work on their projects. Through this process, the student trains to give and receive constructive, formative feedback via peer feedback, round table seminars, etc. These activities help to enhance student learning during their work with the article, and ensure a good study environment.
The primary area of expertise is tax law. As long as the student project has a tax law angle, all other legal and non-legal disciplines are relevant. Students are required to have good legal competencies or a relevant other academic knowledge, since the course’s main intended learning outcome are innovation and entrepreneurial competences. These competences mean the ability to think creatively and outside the box, questioning the status quo, consider value-creating solutions for private and public society, tackling challenges, and explore new ways of doing things.
As an MA elective, the course builds on the legal competencies students acquire during the BA program. During the course, students develop innovative and entrepreneurial skills in synthesis with their legal competencies. The course also sharpens their communicative abilities regarding complex legal matters. On MA level, the course is an extension of the bachelor report and serves as a preparation for the master’s thesis. As the students’ projects can regard various subject areas and disciplines, provided there is a tax-legal angle, there are no immediate prerequisite courses, since the students in the first semester of the Ma program have had a mandatory course on tax law. All MA students will be well placed to take the course.