Aligning doctoral education with local industrial employers’ needs: a comparative case study

ABSTRACT

Doctoral education was primarily designed to answer the human resources needs of academia. However, nowadays, increasing numbers of doctorate holders seek employment outside academia. Accordingly, doctoral education can be one of the means by which universities take part in the development of industry in their regions. This study explores whether and how doctoral-level skills are being adapted to the needs of local industrial employers in two different contexts. Two research and science parks situated next to research-intensive universities in Sweden and Spain were chosen as cases for an exploratory and comparative study. In these parks, local industrial employers conduct R&D activities that make them potentially attractive destinations for doctoral graduates. Similarities in the cases were found regarding the process of adaptation of doctoral education at the adjacent universities to meet the industrial employers’ needs in the parks. Discrepancies are also highlighted regarding stages of development, institutional settings, geography and culture. Implications for several stakeholders are formulated to improve the process analysed in the study concerning better alignment of doctoral education with industrial employers’ need for generic skills.

KEYWORDS:

• Doctoral education
• science and technology parks
• university–industry collaboration
• generic skills
• transferable skills

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the HELIX Competence Centre and Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions grant agreement No. 722295 (RUNIN Project) for providing resources to conduct this study. The authors also appreciate comments on an earlier version of this paper from anonymous reviewers and from the audience of the Triple Helix Conference 2018 and the Regional Innovation Policies Conference 2018.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Eloïse Germain-Alamartine http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1188-4422

Saeed Moghadam-Saman http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6715-7924

Notes

1 Overeducation refers to a situation in which an individual has more education than the current job requires (measured in years) (CEDEFOP, 2010).

2 Overskilling refers to a situation in which an individual is not able to fully utilise his or her skills and abilities in the current job (CEDEFOP, 2010).

3 See Isaksen and Karlsen (2010), who explain that the mode of innovation in regional industries significantly influences their level of cooperation with universities.

4 ‘The Role of Universities in Innovation and Regional Development’ is a research project funded by the European Commission.

5 An SME is a Small or Medium-Sized Enterprise.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by H2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions: [Grant Number 722295].