Career planning highlighted by Smart Industry Sweden

The Smart Industry Sweden graduate school visited, among others, the Jönköping company ITAB during its autumn seminar, hosted by Jönköping University, on 6-7 November,

"Many of our industrial PhD students are approaching the end of their doctoral studies, so we discussed what happens after they have defended their doctoral thesis and how they prepare themselves and their employers for that," says Peter Thorvald, Director of Smart Industry Sweden.

The about 30 participants at the seminar consisted of industrial PhD students as well as representatives from industry and the four universities within Smart Industry Sweden (Halmstad University, Skövde University, University West, Jönköping University and Mid Sweden University in Sundsvall). On 6 November, they were given a tour of ITAB and the industrial PhD students explained how their research is progressing. Later that day they visited Huskvarna Museum and had dinner at Hotell Slottsvillan in Huskvarna.

Debriefing and support

Day two was spent at Science park Towers in Jönköping where they had a workshop on improvement opportunities and talked about career planning. Peter Thorvald is satisfied with the two days in Jönköping.

"It has been great fun. The main purpose of these meetings is to regularly check how our industrial PhD students are doing and if we can support them in any way. Smart Industry Sweden is not only a source of funding, but also a network and a home for our industrial PhD students where they have a context and fellow students to discuss issues with," says Peter Thorvald.

According to Peter Thorvald, the major benefits for companies of having industrial PhD students within Smart Industry Sweden are the proximity to the expertise and research at the universities and the opportunities for skills development of their staff.

"Inspire each other"

Tobias Pettersson is an industrial PhD student at ITAB and is based at the University of Skövde, but has two supervisors from the School of Engineering (JTH) at JU. These are Maria Riveiro, Professor Computer Science, and Tuwe Löfström, Senior Lecturer Computer Science.

Tobias is researching product recognition of items in the grocery trade that can be used in, for example, self-checkouts. He appreciates the seminars, which vary between the different universities within Smart Industry Sweden.
"It is rewarding to visit the different universities and hear about the challenges and working methods of the other industrial doctoral students. It's good that we are a group where we can share experiences and inspire each other," he says.

Paula Lernstål da Silva is the coordinator of Smart Industry Sweden.

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