Graduate program (lato sensu) · Recognized by Brazil's Ministry of Education · 7th cohort
Drawn by data, made by people.
How changes
in behavior
and new technologies
are shaping
the future of cities.
The Responsive Cities MBA
trains the people leading contemporary cities.
Every class is recorded and kept on the Institute's platform for the duration of the program. Classes are taught in Portuguese, with international masterclasses in English.
You choose the electives and build your path around your work.
The capstone project starts in the first module and reaches the Final Panel as a project, a business or a public administration plan.
Professors who research, govern, design and invest in cities, plus international masterclasses.
2.300+members in the Institute's network
You join the Institute's network and stay in it after you complete the MBA.
The capstone project starts from a question: what problem do you see in the city, and what would you like to solve to make it responsive? Across the four modules, the answer becomes a project, a business or a public administration plan.
The foundations of the responsive city: how it takes shape, how it is regulated and financed, and how urban economics and behavior mold it.
Frame a real problem in the city and turn it into the question that guides the whole project.
Technology, data and artificial intelligence applied to architecture and urbanism, to read the city and ground design decisions.
Formulate the solution hypothesis and choose the format: project, business or public administration plan.
The methods that make an idea viable, from the business model to the design process, management and branding.
Test whether the solution holds up: who uses it, who pays, how much it costs and how it scales.
Communicating the project to those who decide on it: the narrative, the script, the presentation and the data behind the proposal.
Turn the solution into a narrative that convinces decision-makers, from the script to the Final Panel.
hours
70 hours required · 110 hours elective · 105 hours Transversal Modules, Workshop and Panel · 40 hours capstone · 15 hours mentoring · 20 hours international masterclasses
Simulate your curriculum.
Start from a sample path
0 of 11 electives
In-person meetingsTalks and workshops in São Paulo and Porto Alegre that bring together students, alumni and professors of the Responsive Cities MBA. Participation is optional.
The Responsive Cities Institute communityWhen you enroll, you join a network of more than 2,300 members, over 300 of them alumni of the Responsive Cities MBA, and you stay in it after you complete the program.
Graduates of the MBA remain part of the Responsive Cities Institute network, which has more than 2,300 members, and keep attending the in-person meetings with students and professors.
After finishing a doctorate, I never imagined I would study again. But the Responsive Cities MBA program, with its systemic view of cities, made me want to take on the challenge. Beyond that, the focus on developing new businesses is helping me understand my strengths and how many profitable opportunities I can create from them.
We know the city is a living organism, that it isn't static. But doing the MBA added a new layer: realizing that our view is conditioned to assume the city can be governed by rigid, static legislation, and that this is not true. […] When we look at housing, there is a crystallized idea across every level of government: housing understood only as the production of housing units. We stop treating housing as a static product that exists to meet a deficit, and start seeing it as a mechanism that can transform the city and, with it, everyone's lives.
The MBA made me see the city as a living organism, and how everything connects: even the smallest scale of project we work at can connect with the city. It also opened my eyes to the amount of data we have access to today and how to put it to work for the project. […] In a short time, I had already sketched an interface that could become my work. For an architecture office that does mostly drafting-table projects, it also opened my mind to the kinds of projects I can take on now. It is no longer only a drafting-table project. It is also data management, and using that data for the city.
I identify strongly with the idea of making academic work have an impact in the real world. Our final project was about mobility. One of the most striking parts of building the MVP was when we interviewed people who use public transportation in the metropolitan region of Rio de Janeiro. It helped the people in our group better understand that context and the difficulties those people face. With that, we can propose better solutions and understand how urgent some of them are for Brazilian cities.
Today I can ask questions I didn't think of before, and answer them too: whether public facilities are really fulfilling their role, whether society is being well served. In our work, we tend to see everything as very small, thinking that what we do doesn't have much impact, especially in procurement and inspection. The MBA gave me a much broader view: a document really can make an enormous difference in people's lives. We build infrastructure on hillsides in Minas Gerais that makes all the difference to the safety and housing of some people.
How I see land and cities changed a lot after the program. We can't look at a plot of land in isolation. The city is in constant development: it is urban behavior, an analysis of the behavior of the people who will live there, data analysis, flows, urban mobility. […] In product development, the way spaces are built and designed shapes people's daily lives. That is very important: starting to see the city with different eyes.
What's included
If your question is not answered here, talk to admissions.
Who it is for
No. The MBA trains the people leading contemporary cities, in academia, in government and in the market. The same cohort includes public managers and civil servants, real estate developers and entrepreneurs, architects and urban planners, engineers and data scientists.
No. The data and programming courses start from the basics, and the more technical electives are your choice.
Neither. It is a graduate program (lato sensu), with a specialist title, that combines theory and practice: urban economics, planning, data and software applied to a problem in the city that you bring.
How it works
Live online. Classes run Monday to Thursday, 7:00 to 9:30 pm (Brasília time), and the international masterclasses take place on ten Saturdays during the program, 2:00 to 4:00 pm (Brasília time), with live Portuguese subtitles.
Classes are taught in Portuguese, with international masterclasses in English.
Classes are recorded and stay available on the Institute's platform for the duration of the program. Attendance is recorded, but passing does not require a minimum of live attendance.
360 hours, from March 2027 to April 2028. The Final Panel, where groups present their capstone project to the examining board, takes place April 18 to 27, 2028.
No. The in-person meetings in São Paulo, in May and October 2027, are optional and not part of the program hours.
Up to 15 hours for the capstone project. You request a session when the project needs it and arrange the time directly with the professor or mentor.
Title and assessment
It is a graduate program (lato sensu) of Faculdade Herrero, registered with Brazil's Ministry of Education (MEC), that confers the title of specialist in Responsive Cities.
Assessment for all courses is run through the Transversal Module, and passing requires a minimum average of 7.0 out of 10 (C+ on our grading scale). To receive the title, students must submit the capstone project on time and pass the Final Panel.