Chalmers, KTH and several well-known industrial players joined forces to launch the business research school Resource-smart processes just over three years ago. By investing in research that optimizes bio-based processes and attracting young PhD students, the competitiveness of the forestry, textile and chemical industries would be strengthened. The recipe for success was collaboration and the forms for this have emerged under the leadership of two female researchers; Merima Hasani at Chalmers and Olena Sevastyanova at KTH. Uppsala University’s Malin Wohlert has also been important in building up the graduate school, which also includes Linköping University and Luleå University.
– “Collaboration across university boundaries has enabled us to broaden both the competence and infrastructural base of the graduate school. Having a platform where we link our different competence profiles and research traditions has been central to driving the research forward and getting a more coherent research landscape in bio-based processes,” says Merima Hasani, coordinator of the graduate school.
Merima exemplifies what she means by pointing out the differences between KTH and Chalmers’ more experimental research and Uppsala University’s stronger theoretical foundation. Another of the graduate school’s pillars is the involvement of industry. Right from the start, a central part of the set-up was that the graduate school’s eleven doctoral and postdoctoral projects would be supervised by both universities and industry.
– This approach ensures that research is of high quality and has an impact. Our doctoral students work on projects that have high implementation potential while receiving strong academic support. We are generating new knowledge and training the experts of the future,” says Olena Sevastyanova.
Doctoral students – one of the big winners of the graduate school
The door is always open for new relevant initiatives within the graduate school. This has led, among other things, to Linköping University recently joining and soon they will be holding a course on AI and big data linked to the process industry.
As a supervisor, Malin Wohlert sees that the doctoral students are among the big winners of the graduate school:
– PhD students are part of an extensive academic and industrial network where they can bounce their projects off each other and they get industry-relevant experience for free, which otherwise requires quite a lot of effort. We meet regularly in workshops and meetings to open up inspiring conversations and discussions.
Since the graduate school started, working methods have evolved and forms of collaboration between academia and industry have taken shape. One appreciated part is the company-led courses, for example Valmet has a course in mass transportation and Stora Enso an innovation course where students make fictional business cases of their projects. A seminar series on sustainability and circularity was also recently organized, where the companies in the graduate school each held a session.
“Incredible way to conduct basic research with high industrial relevance”
In response to the question of whether there is something they want to develop further in the future, Merima, Olena and Malin all answer: ex-jobs! The Graduate School has started to develop a structure for master’s theses that are linked to ongoing doctoral projects. This has proved to be a good way to broaden the research, get a wider contact area with industry and arouse the master’s students’ interest in bio-based processes. Several ex-workers have also moved on to industry.
The graduate school is now approaching its final year and with it comes important insights for future initiatives.
– We see that this is a form of collaboration that works incredibly well to conduct basic research with high industrial relevance. We will use both the course package and the working methods to continue to strengthen collaboration between academia and industry. There is a fantastic network here that is worth building on,” says Merima.
