Experience from industrial graduate (PhD) schools

Abstract

Traditionally, research education is performed within the universities, and the PhD students are working within a research group. However, technical development and also research is performed within companies, and the need to keep up with the latest findings in research and to strengthen the competence within the private business sector is increasing. At Mälardalen University, we have experience from working in several Industrial Graduate Schools. The collaboration with the companies gets intensified and deepened trough such programmes, and the university tends to keep the good contact with previous PhD students and their companies also many years after their graduation. The Graduate Schools also give the companies good insight in the university world. Presently, we are involved in two Graduate Schools, and several of the PhD projects are focusing within Biomedical Engineering. Further, one of the graduate schools is linked to the research profile Embedded Sensor Systems for Health, which is supported from the same financier. Companies are involved also in the research profile, and through these activities, the Industrial PhD students form a critical mass and can exchange both experience and knowledge with other companies and with university researchers.