Mention of Industrial Doctorate in the PhD

What is an Industrial Doctorate?

An industrial doctorate is a research project developed between a university and a company that integrates the training of a doctoral student. The essential element of the industrial doctorate is the research project carried out at a company or institution, where doctoral students will further develop their research training in collaboration with a university or research centre to complete a doctoral thesis.

The three parts of an industrial doctorate

The Government of Catalonia has an annual call for applications to financially support industrial doctorate projects. The aim of the Industrial Doctorate Plan is to contribute to the competitiveness and internationalisation of the Catalan industry, strengthen the tools for recruiting the talent generated in the country and put future PhD holders in the right place to carry out R&D&I projects in companies. In this Plan, two modalities are offered:

Co-financed ID projects

Specific ID projects

For more information, please follow this link.

Images from the website of the Industrial Doctorates Plan of the Government of Catalonia.

The Industrial Doctorate Mention in the PhD

The mention "Industrial Doctorate" will be awarded provided that the following circumstances are met:

The existence of a job or commercial contract with the doctoral candidate. The contract may be signed by a private or public sector company, as well as by the public administration.
The doctoral candidate must participate in a project of industrial research or experimental development within the company or public administration they work for, which cannot be a university. The industrial research or experimental development project in which the doctoral candidate participates must have a direct relationship to the thesis. This direct relationship will be certified through a report submitted by the Academic Comission of the PhD Program of the candidate.

If the industrial research or experimental development project is carried out between the university and the company or public administration the doctoral candidate works for, a cooperation agreement will be signed. This agreement will indicate the obligations of the university and the obligations of the company or public administration, as well as the procedure for the selection of doctoral students.

The thesis supervisor will be designated by the university, and the company or public administration the doctoral candidate will work for will also designate a supervisor, who, where appropriate, may act as the thesis supervisor in accordance with the regulations of the doctorate.

(Article 15bis of Real Decreto 99/2011, of January 28, which regulates official doctorate studies.)

The Mention of Industrial Doctorate will be awarded to all PhD students who have obtained an Industrial Doctorate grant awarded by the Agency for Management of University and Research Grants (AGAUR) of the Catalan government.