The Danish Centre for Design Research aims to promote the use of the industrial PhD programme. An industrial PhD project is a business-oriented PhD project carried out in a partnership between a private enterprise, a PhD student and the Danish Centre for Design Research.
Programme structure
As an industrial PhD student, you receive research training, partly through the work you do on your research project, and partly by taking PhD courses included in the programme. For example, you will be taking part in a business course for PhD students, which involves writing a business report that puts your project into a commercial perspective. As an industrial PhD student in design, you enrol along with the traditional PhD students in one of the research schools. The Danish Centre for Design Research offers PhD courses on an ongoing basis.
Your research project is concluded with a PhD dissertation, which you hand in at the end of the three-year programme and defend at a public PhD seminar.
Terms of employment
You become an employee of the company for three years, and another employee of the company is appointed as your advisor. Your salary is subject to negotiation with your employer but must be at least equivalent to the salary for PhD students as agreed in the collective agreement. You divide your work hours between the company and a school of design or architecture. At the school, you have an academic advisor and become part of the research environment of the school and of the Danish Centre for Design Research.
Bridge building
As an industrial PhD student, you are a bridge-builder between the enterprise and the research environment, and you receive a highly versatile research degree that embraces both theory and practice. Through the research project, the enterprise has receives directly applicable research results as well as access to a valuable network involving universities and other businesses.
To learn more about the programme, please contact the research coordinator at the Danish Centre for Design Research.
Read about four industrial PhD students in our webzine Mind Design:
- Anne Louise Bang, the Kolding School of Design and the textile manufacturer Gabriel
- Aviaja Borup Lynggaard, Aarhus School of Architecture and Bang & Olufsen
- Kirsten Bonde Sørensen, the Kolding School of Design and the savings bank Middelfart Sparekasse
- Sofie Kinch, Aarhus School of Architecture and the Alexandra Institute
