Entering academic engagement with industry as a PhD student: Modes of entry and the ability to bridge academia and industry during PhD education

This article contributes to a deeper understanding of how the background and motivation of PhD students who are simultaneously employed at firms may influence their ability to bridge academia and industry during their education. These students pursue collaborative research projects, which are an understudied yet potentially important form of academic engagement with industry. Our qualitative study is based on interviews with fifteen firm-employed PhD students, selected from one Swedish university, in a field of engineering. Our analysis identifies three modes of entry for firm-employed PhD students – namely supervisor-initiated, master’s thesis-initiated, and employee-initiated projects. We propose that these modes of entry reflect the variation in students’ ability to play a dual boundary spanning role for both the university and the firm. Future research should address how PhD students play an active role in developing academic engagement with industry, as well as the outcomes of projects from these three modes of entry.