Abstract:

University cooperation and networking with society and practice are of crucial importance in contemporary society. There are various university approaches such as entrepreneurial university, triple helix and work-integrated learning (WIL). Contemporary societal challenges, on all levels from local to global, are complex and often call for the inclusion of many perspectives and competences. There is thus a demand for increased university-society collaboration generating learning, new knowledge, dissemination of research findings, innovation and societal impact. One aspect of this is the collaboration between the university and industry through industrial PhD students who are active in the university-industry interface, i.e., employed in industry during their PhD third-cycle education, where they are at the same time involved in both theory and practice in university and industry. They hence act as channels or brokers of knowledge spanning the boundaries between industry and university. Industry funding of PhD students is increasing and often also includes industry experts taking part in supervisory committees. The industrial benefits of a university-society collaboration may include collaboration for product or process development, access to academic networks, competence development/supply and business opportunities although research is scarce..

University West in Sweden is one of 31 public-sector Swedish higher education institutions (HEIs), and has a profile area in work-integrated learning, which generally aims to address issues on integrating theory and practice in education in a sustainable and coherent way. In this paper the arguments are based on a study of a PhD program in informatics with a specialization of WIL at School of Business, Economics and IT at University West.

Previous research mainly focuses on the students´ learning outcomes and educational experiences. Thus, the aim of this paper is to explore university-industry collaboration by focusing on the industry perspectives in investing in industrial PhD students, third-cycle education. The research is conducted as a case study, focusing on collaborations between industry and the discipline of informatics with the specialization of work-integrated learning. Qualitative methods are applied including semi-structured interviews with representatives from the industry.

Keywords:

University-Industry collaboration, Industrial PhD students, third-cycle education, Work-integrated learning, practice.