Five ways to connect PhD students with industry

Traditionally, PhD programmes offer candidates the opportunity to immerse themselves in research projects, conferences, papers, teaching – the best of academic life. But it’s less common, however, for PhD students to spare time for industry experience. As the worlds of research and industry grow ever closer, I would argue that facilitating good links between industry and academia brings great benefits, especially for PhD students.

In the LSE SPRING programme for PhD researchers, I am working to do just that. Our main purpose is to bridge the gap between academia and other sectors, so that PhD students can get to know their sectors from within and build relationships with professionals in relevant fields.

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In dialogue with PhD candidates, we are developing a programme that responds to their highest priorities for postdoctoral preparation and support – building relationships between academia and industry, understanding career options and identifying and developing transferable skills.

Five ways to connect PhD students with industry

Here are five approaches to successfully connect PhD students with industry, and why they work:

1. Build a community: For us, one of the biggest successes of LSE SPRING, and something that underpins what we do, has been the community we have built among students, staff and external organisations across disciplines. Initiatives such as our LSE SPRING Overnight Retreat, held in January at the Birch Community Hotel in Cheshunt, facilitate the creation of an interdepartmental community of like-minded PhD students. This has contributed to cross-departmental and interdisciplinary interaction among the research student community.
2. Establish micro-internships: A micro-internship scheme creates space for PhD researchers to hone their skills beyond academia according to a schedule that works for them, thanks to a shorter duration, more flexible hours and accommodating other commitments or restrictions students may have. In this way, the scheme enriches, rather than distracts from other commitments. Many of our micro-internships centre around the completion of a small-scale project with a strong research or policy component, providing valuable contributions to the host organisations, while enhancing the analytical and professional skills of the doctoral researchers.
3. Facilitate mentoring: Through the LSE SPRING mentoring scheme, we bring together PhD candidates with mentors who work in the private, public and third sector and hold PhDs in a range of disciplines. The scheme supports PhD researchers who wish to engage in collaborative research with non-academic organisations as part of their PhD or postdoctoral project, or who wish to explore career options outside higher education. Mentors and mentees discuss how to best bridge the space between academia and business, and flexible meetings take place to suit both parties.
4. Run tailored training sessions: Our Researcher Development Programme provides training sessions for PhD students looking to acquire the necessary knowledge, confidence and skills to pursue impactful collaboration, complementing the knowledge and skills that LSE PhD students gain through their department. It also offers discipline-specific training. The sessions cover a range of topics to help students develop as researchers, harness the skills and experience they gain during their doctoral studies and be able to operate in diverse research contexts.
5. Support collaborative research proposals: Collaborative research projects are unique opportunities for PhD students to learn and develop, showcase their capacity for insight and impact in industry, expand their networks and develop transferable skills. From finding the right organisation to partner with, to project management and relationship management, there’s lots to get to grips with. To help our students, we have created resources, such as our Collaboration Toolkit, which link with our careers division and our department for entrepreneurship.

Making industry connections work for our students

Connections with industry help our early career researchers shape and take control of their careers post-PhD. Through initiatives such as mentoring, micro-interning or collaborative research projects, PhD candidates can develop the skills, knowledge and confidence to open up the way they view their professional futures. Through an enriched PhD journey, they open doors to more opportunities afterwards, whether in academia, outside academia, or – becoming ever more common through the course of a career – a mixture of the two.

Maria-Christina Vogkli is a researcher in the department of sociology at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

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