The interaction of academic and industrial supervisors in graduate education

Abstract

In this study we explore the work and the cooperation of academic and industrial supervisors concerning single graduate students in so called industrial research schools, which are financially supported by a national research foundation and involve universities and industrial enterprises. Academic and industrial supervisors of totally eleven graduate students have been interviewed with focus on their cooperation. This cooperation entails negotiating the contract and monitoring the progress of the research project and the student. When students have problems this cooperation is particularly important. The places new demands on both the academic and industrial supervisors. In our study these demands were dealt with differently by different academic supervisors, depending whether their main orientation was towards industrial projects or traditional academic research. The way the industrial supervisors dealt with the new demands depended on their previous acquaintance with academic research, basically whether they had a doctoral degree or not. Another important finding was that academic knowledge had a strong position while the supervisors from the industry accepted a minor role. The main findings of the study are that industrial graduate students often require joint engagement in a way that differs from other forms of knowledge transfer between the academy and the industry. To explain the features of this type of knowledge transfer, we use the analytical concepts boundary subject and phronesis.

Students’ experiences of supervision in academic and industry settings: results of an Australian study

“…In that study, Harman (2002Harman ( , 2004, however, did not examine other forms of communication such as email, phone or Internet-based communication. International studies also have highlighted only the reasons for a wide variation in frequency of contact with both groups of supervisors (BorrellDamian 2009;Salminen-Karlsson and Wallgren 2008). Despite Industry students receiving more face-to-face communication with their supervisor at the 'more than once a week' level, both cohorts reported comparable supervisory feedback and support (Table 4).…”

“…These results are surprising given that universities have traditionally placed a great deal of emphasis on building an intellectual climate for learning. Perhaps this can be partly explained by the fact that industry supervisors may focus their work with students on socialising them into their industrial workplace (Salminen-Karlsson and Wallgren 2008). Although current theories about academic supervision reflect the vital role supervisors play in incorporating their students into the research culture (Manathunga 2005;Pearson and Brew 2002), it is possible that academic supervisors of industry projects dwell more upon the academic requirements of the research than professional socialisation.…”

“…Wallgren and Hägglund (2004), however, found a higher incidence of communication problems in the student and supervisor interactions where industry was involved, and in the interactions between academic and industry supervisors. These issues were further analysed by Salminen-Karlsson and Wallgren (2008) in an examination of the academic and industry supervisors of 11 research students. They found that most of the supervisors in their study had a track record of prior research collaboration and that this increased levels of trust and cooperation between the academic and industry supervisors.…”

Academic capitalism in the Pasteur’s quadrant

“…However, positive implications for students are also found in the literature, such as meaningful educational opportunities, funding, networking for future employment, and social and academic involvement (e.g. Gluck 1987;Stephan 2001;Debackere and Veugelers 2005;Mendoza 2007a;Salminen-Karlsson and Wallgren 2008).…”

Ethical Risks of Pursuing Participatory Research as an Industrial Doctoral Student

“…Among other things, he found that industrial doctoral students typically occupy three roles simultaneously, making them highly important in industry---academy relations: knowledge producers, knowledge brokers and network agents. Salminen---Karlsson and Wallgren [4] labelled this position as boundary subject for knowledge transfer. They moreover proposed the use of phronesis to study the knowledge transfer, as the emphasis of phronesis is on the ethical aspects of knowledge.…”