The Industrial Doctorate Plan (DI) of the Department of Research and Universities has allowed a total of 918 applied research projects to be completed in its first ten years of operation. A decade of the trajectory of the program to boost technological and knowledge transfer in Catalonia, in which 671 researchers from the Catalan university and research system, 600 companies, the 12 Catalan universities and up to 30 research centers have taken part of the country
Between 2012 and 2022, public-private financing of the plan has risen to 120 million euros, two-thirds coming from the private sector and one-third from the public sector, and the call for DIs has increased by 1.5 million to to 6 million annually.
The Minister for Research and Universities, Joaquim Nadal i Farreras, who presided over the event commemorating the 10 years of the DI Plan held this afternoon at the Palau de la Música, reaffirmed "the Government's commitment to the continuity of the Doctorate program Industrial, so that it increases resources and continues to deepen the close collaboration between the university and the research centers with companies" .
Councilor Nadal, in addition, has put the DI Plan as an "example of the goal that gives meaning to the Government's work of working to build a better future for Catalonia, with citizens at the center of its policies, hoping that it becomes not an exception but rather a rule of joint work between the public sector and the economic and social fabric" .
For his part, the academic director of the DI Plan, Albert Sangrà, has pointed out that "industrial doctors act as bridges of knowledge transfer, contributing to closer relations between the industrial fabric of Catalonia and universities and centers of research" .
Collaborative research between university and company
The DIs are a program promoted by the Department of Research and Universities in order to respond to the challenge of knowledge and technology transfer and its application in the country's productive fabric. Over the course of a decade, the Plan has consolidated a model of collaborative research that has made it possible to value knowledge, incorporate and retain scientific talent, enhance the competitiveness of the productive fabric and generate highly qualified jobs in the productive fabric of the country
These projects have allowed PhD students to acquire scientific skills at the highest level, as well as access to first-rate equipment and infrastructure. Companies, for their part, have attracted talent and contributed to training people of great potential to improve their competitiveness and internationalization, as well as boost their performance and advance technologically. The own knowledge generated in universities, research centers and hospitals, but also in companies and institutions, has made it possible to create bridges of collaboration between the academic world and the socio-economic world.
By research area of the projects, the majority areas have been those of information and communications technologies (26%), health and biomedical sciences (22%), chemical sciences and technologies (15%), and social sciences (11%). The rest of the projects have been placed in the areas of design and industrial production (8%); civil engineering, geoenvironmental and architecture (6%); mathematics and physics (6%); biology (5%), and arts and humanities (1%).
In the history of 10 years and more than 900 doctoral projects, the DI Plan has encouraged the transfer between the university and research system and the productive fabric in a wide range of fields of knowledge. Within the framework of the Plan, collaborative research projects have been carried out on vehicle electrification, communications security, e-mobility, 5G technology, agri-food and sustainability, as well as disruptive projects on 3D printing of food, capture of CO₂, circular economy, Machine and Deep Learning , artificial intelligence, vegetable proteins or increasing the capacities of disabled people.
A consolidated model
The research model deployed by the Industrial Doctorates Plan is based on research projects that bring universities, research centers, companies and institutions into contact. The researchers and pre-doctoral researchers develop the collaborative research project, which will be the subject of their doctoral thesis, as contracted staff of the companies, with a minimum remuneration of 22,000 euros per year, which makes it easier for them to continue, once completed the project and the doctoral thesis.
In addition, the program aims to promote collaborative research team effort, which culminates in results that, on the one hand, are directly applied to the companies involved and, on the other, generate economic activity in the territory and transfer technology and knowledge with an impact on society as a whole.
The professional projection of people with a doctorate degree also shows a clear trend towards consolidation in our country. According to the results of the latest Labor Insertion Survey of people with degrees from Catalan universities coordinated by the Agency for the Quality of the University System of Catalonia (AQU Catalunya), doctorates show data that touch on full employment, with only 1.7% unemployment rate. The company already employs more than half of recent PhDs (55% of the total, compared to 28% of universities and 17% of research institutions) and the growth of these graduates has grown within of the private sector up to 16% since 2008.
The DIs are an initiative of the Government of the Generalitat of Catalonia started as a pilot plan in 2012 and aligned with the National Pact for the Knowledge Society (PN@SC). It is based on other successful international experiences, with more than 30 years of history, launched in countries such as France or Denmark, and has an annual call, permanently open, which resolves the selected candidates four times a year.
commemoration
The Industrial Doctorates Plan has commemorated its 10th anniversary with different actions that have culminated in the event held today at the Palau de la Música. As part of this, the Impacte DI 2012-2022 awards were presented, which recognized four projects in the categories of Impact on society (Linh Johansson, industrial PhD student between the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) and Mimetis Biomaterials SL) ; Impact on people (Joel Torres Serra, industrial doctor between the UPC and TMI Técnicas Mecánicas Ilerdense SA); New industrial doctorate project proposal (Mahsa Pourmohammad Golloujeh), and Impact on the company [Dr. Laia Bosch Camós, industrial doctor between the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) and the Institute of Agro-Food Research and Technology (IRTA)].
The event also had the participation of professionals of international scientific relevance and a keynote presentation by the international expert in innovation and advisor to the Barack Obama Administration between 2010 and 2017, Natalia Olson-Urtecho.
The compilation book Industrial Doctorates. 10 years of collaborative research in Catalonia reviews the decade of experiences of the DI Plan, through different perspectives and contributions from collaborators.
Apart from different actions on social networks, a video has also been produced to collect different testimonies from participants of the DI Plan and various collaborations, as well as the results and impacts of the projects.
