Product development, especially in European universities, is taught mostly by professors who later return to the university after some years of gathering experiences in leading positions in industry. Changing from industry to university, they have to prepare lectures in a short time which causes insufficient approaches with provisional scripts and frantic activities. Additionally, these young professors do not have the chance to develop a well-founded curriculum due to the huge complexity and dynamic of the research area. Even if they finally succeed on a high teaching level, quite often their active time has diminished and they retire. The following paper shows a new approach of standardising, structuring, and linking knowledge in product development. This system called "the key to innovation" will give the opportunity to develop a new quality of teaching, learning, training and product development itself.     «

Product development, especially in European universities, is taught mostly by professors who later return to the university after some years of gathering experiences in leading positions in industry. Changing from industry to university, they have to prepare lectures in a short time which causes insufficient approaches with provisional scripts and frantic activities. Additionally, these young professors do not have the chance to develop a well-founded curriculum due to the huge complexity and dy...     »