A National Graduate Research School in Product Realization

Paper in proceeding, 2007

The education of Ph.D. students in Sweden has changed during the last decade. Earlier a student used 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 and mainly involved local researchers. Today’s students are much more active at the national level in both respects. With support from research foundations, universities have begun to offer joint courses for all doctoral students within a specific subject area nationwide, and cooperate in research projects that often involve partners not only from several universities but also from industry. There are several advantages with this approach to Ph.D. student education. Not only are national resources more efficiently used when courses are offered by the leading researchers and research groups to all students in a particular field, the students also get tremendous opportunities to develop personal relations with each other across institutional borders, something which simplifies and is expected to substantially stimulate cooperation between them also after they have graduated and taken up positions in academia or industry. This paper describes the organisation of and activities in a national graduate research school in product realization which has been in operation since 2003. The ProViking National Graduate Research School offers courses on subjects ranging from customer needs to ways of manufacturing competitive products. The school is in turn part of the ProViking programme, which is financed by the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research. The students in the school also participate in research projects organised by the ProViking programme and with members from both academia and industry. One of the authors is the Managing Director of the programme and the other is the Director of Studies of the research school.