A National Graduate Research School in Product Realization

• The education of Ph.D. students in Sweden has changed during the last decade. Earlier a studentused to take most of his/her courses - which make up about one fourth of the total work in a Ph.D.programme - at the home university and participate in research projects that were based there andmainly involved local researchers. Today’s students are much more active at the national level inboth respects. With support from research foundations, universities have begun to offer joint coursesfor all doctoral students within a specific subject area nationwide, and cooperate in research projectsthat often involve partners not only from several universities but also from industry. There areseveral advantages with this approach to Ph.D. student education. Not only are national resourcesmore efficiently used when courses are offered by the leading researchers and research groups to allstudents in a particular field, the students also get tremendous opportunities to develop personalrelations with each other across institutional borders, something which simplifies and is expected tosubstantially stimulate cooperation between them also after they have graduated and taken uppositions in academia or industry. This paper describes the organisation of and activities in a nationalgraduate research school in product realization which has been in operation since 2003. TheProViking National Graduate Research School offers courses on subjects ranging from customerneeds to ways of manufacturing competitive products. The school is in turn part of the ProVikingprogramme, which is financed by the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research. The students in theschool also participate in research projects organised by the ProViking programme and withmembers from both academia and industry. One of the authors is the Managing Director of theprogramme and the other is the Director of Studies of the research school.

Subject headings

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Annan teknik -- Övrig annan teknik (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Other Engineering and Technologies -- Other Engineering and Technologies not elsewhere specified (hsv//eng)

Keyword

realization

graduate

school

product

national

research

Publication and Content Type

kon (subject category)

ref (subject category)