Mbeya University of Science and Technology (MUST) established the Centre for Innovation and Technology Transfer (CITT) to promote idea generation, knowledge creation, technology licencing, intellectual property protection, venture capital and funding, and business plan development and growth. CITT is geared towards collaboration with science and businesses by providing various types of support for students and staff, as well as start-ups and scale-ups. CITT also aims to contribute to Tanzania's social and economic development by providing high-quality supervision and coordination of all inventions, innovation, and entrepreneurship activities and initiatives that lead to the development of spin-offs and start-ups, thereby contributing to Tanzania's diversification and economic self-sufficiency for present and future generations. In this viewpoint, the role of CITT is to foster creativity by bringing and managing innovative, technological, and entrepreneurship development.

Overall, CITT's mission is to provide objectives, guidelines, procedures, and standards for managing inventions, innovations, entrepreneurship, and technology transfer activities through;

1. Developing, reviewing and implementing programmes, policies and guidelines in the field of innovation and technology transfer;
2. Monitoring and evaluating performance of innovation and technology transfer programmes;
3. Facilitating training and mentoring of inventors and innovators through incubation, seminars, workshops and boot camps; hackathons etc.
4. Managing research activities in liaise with the Directorate of Postgraduate Studies, Research and Publications; and
5. Providing consultancy services in Liaise with the University’s Internationalization and Convocation Unit.

Departments under CITT

The Centre for Innovation and Technology Transfer (CITT) is consisting of two departments and one technology park, each of which performs the following tasks:

1. Department of Innovations and Incubation

The Department of Innovations and Incubation (DII) performs the following functions;

1. Conduct training and mentoring of inventors and innovators;
2. Handle innovators complaints related to innovations and incubation;
3. Establish and run Innovations and incubation in liaise with other partners;
4. Coordinate all matters related to Technology Transfer;
5. Maintain database of Innovators;
6. Handle all matters related to registration and assessment of student’s Innovation programmes.
7. Coordinate evaluation of performance programs and keep periodic implementation reports of programs.
8. Department of Entrepreneurship and Business Management

The Department of Entrepreneurship and Business Management (DEBM) is responsible for the following tasks:

1. Conduct training and mentoring of Entrepreneurship and Business Management programmes;
2. Develop a business plan of innovations;
3. Advertising and marketing of innovative products;
4. Management and financial advisory.
5. Liaise with various experts in innovation and technology transfer worldwide to nurture innovation, entrepreneurship, intellectual property rights and technology evaluation;
6. Promote Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) awareness at the university and beyond;
7. Maintain a database of the Entrepreneur and Business activities;
8. Design mechanisms that allow academic staff, graduates and individuals to convert their research outputs and/or business ideas to commercial companies;
9. Handle all matters related student’s Entrepreneurship and Business Management
10. Attract investment in innovation and commercialization of research results by creating funding mechanisms;
11. Handle student and academic staff complaints related to Department of Entrepreneurship and Business Management programmes;
12. Rural Technology Park

The Rural Technology Park (RTP) at MUST Rukwa Campus College (MRCC) serves the following purposes:

1. Supports in bringing technology to rural community
2. Commercialize innovation results in technologies that have the strongest impact to rural community
3. Look for new spin-off, start-up companies in order to generate rural economic activity and create jobs.
4. Act as a driver of Public/Private Partnerships (PPP)
5. Complement the mission of the University in enhancing outreach services