Industry–university collaboration in industrial doctorates: A trouble-free marriage?

Abstract

<jats:p> This article explores the perceptions of Portuguese students enrolled in industrial doctorates, regarding potential conflicts that may arise from their supervision, their research topic and their research outputs. The study uses data collected from focus groups and subjected to content analysis. The findings suggest that industrial doctoral students recognise a divergence between university and industry, mainly regarding research outputs, and particularly industry’s need to keep data confidential and the university’s need to disseminate knowledge via the publication of articles. Convergence was noted at the level of joint supervision, sometimes facilitated by the fact that academics were also entrepreneurs. The success of this kind of collaborative doctorate depends on compromise between the two parties and on how students can manage this relationship. Therefore, their perspectives are an important source of information worth consideration. </jats:p>

University-Industry Collaboration in Higher Education: Exploring the Informing Flows Framework in Industrial PhD Education

“…Another one was the fear that the academic value in the PhD students' pre-understanding of the industry context is limited. Challenges regarding time limits for project results and workload were strongly emphasized and these correspond to earlier studies (Grimm, 2018;Gustavsson et al, 2016;Kihlander et al, 2011;Kolmos et al, 2008;Tavares et al, 2020).…”

“…Kihlander et al (2011) point out that to increase the probability that both academia and industry will view the collaboration as mutually rewarding, the various collaborative parties need to understand and cope with expectations and requirements placed on the industrial PhD student. Additionally, prerequisites identified as success factors for collaboration around industrial PhD education are, according to earlier research (Grimm, 2018;Gustavsson et al, 2016;Kihlander et al, 2011;Kolmos et al, 2008;Tavares et al, 2020), joint design and support of the program, aligned dual requirements, long-term organizational commitment from university and industry, and a supportive organizational structure. The collaboration and aims should be strategically anchored in both university and industry with transparent regular communication following the student's progress and joint supervision, design, and scope of PhD projects.…”

“…Organizational flexibility is important to provide the PhD student with flexibility and time to collaborate with colleagues in university and industry and to avoid isolation or high workload. However, the divergence between university and industry may cause dilemmas such as the different time horizons regarding research results, industry's need to keep data confidential, and the university's need to disseminate knowledge as article publications (Tavares et al, 2020).…”

“…There is however limited research on the benefits of university-industry collaboration regarding PhD education (Assbring & Nuur, 2017;Bernhard et al, 2018;Roolaht, 2015), and it is mainly focused on the students' learning outcomes and educational experiences (Berg & McKelvey, 2020;Thune, 2009). Emerging research covers, e.g., European industrial PhD programs in informatics and engineering in Sweden (Berg & McKelvey, 2020;Kihlander et al, 2011), engineering and health science in Portugal (Tavares et al, 2020), engineering and automotive manufacturing in Germany (Grimm, 2018), programs as policy tools for university-society collaboration in Estonia and Denmark (Roolaht, 2015), and, in the USA, the interdisciplinary business doctorate program for executives (Gill & Mullarkey, 2015). Furthermore, research on collaboration and strategic collaborative arrangements over time between industrial PhD students and industry is scarce (Kihlander et al, 2011).…”

Review of benefits and challenges of co‐supervision in doctoral education

“…The majority of the articles focus on Higher Education in Europe; including Portugal (Tavares et al, 2020), the UK (Mawson & Abbott, 2017), Finland (Lahenius & Ikävalko, 2014) and Denmark (Kobayashi et al, 2015). Another three articles (Grossman & Crowther, 2015; Ukwoma & Ngulube, 2020; van Biljon & de Villiers, 2013) are from South Africa.…”