Exploring industrial PhD students and perceptions of their impact on firm innovation

This chapter explores industrial PhD students and perceptions of their impact on firm innovation. It relates to the larger question of how academic engagement with industry through collaborative research can influence firm innovation. Specifically, it explores university–industry collaboration from the perspective of industrial PhD students, who in the present case are simultaneously PhD students and firm employees. The empirical context is collaborative research in the engineering field in Sweden. Given the lack of previous relevant research, the chapter first explores the conditions of industrial PhD students, leading to a definition. Next, an existing conceptual framework for academic engagement is presented and elaborated upon, by detailing the micro-level activities of these PhD students in order to understand their perceived contribution to firm innovation during their education. Our results suggest that industrial PhD students are more involved in developing firm capabilities for innovation than directly involved in developing product innovations or patents.