Doctoral School
[EIT Success Story 2020]
EIT Manufacturing’s Doctoral School Programme is designed to identify and empower tomorrow’s manufacturing talents and entrepreneurs, and equip them with the right transversal skills to shape Europe’s industrial future. The programme provides a powerful mix of theory and practice and benefits from EIT Manufacturing’s network.
The EIT Manufacturing Doctoral School was established in 2020, with the first successful, fully virtual, Winter School organised between November and December 2020, training 28 enrolled PhD students and receiving excellent feedback. The programme continues in 2021, with the goal of inspiring more students to grow their skills, so they can shape tomorrow’s sustainable and competitive European manufacturing.
EIT Manufacturing estimates that up to 10% of graduated students will create a new business startup and another 10% will develop innovative products as output of their research and disruptive ideas. Ongoing collaboration with industries and research centres will contribute to a 90% employability rate of the post-PhD students, being eligible for highly specialised roles.
EIT Manufacturing’s Doctoral School has the aim of training more than 200 researchers and professionals by 2026, providing them a full path in innovation and entrepreneurship through industrial and international exposure. Its short programmes are intended to attract more than 1,000 PhD students worldwide, and are delivered through a Cooperation Agreement that involves seven leading universities across Europe.
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The latest advances in technology and the latest manufacturing trends require engineers with transversal skills. Along with having technical qualifications, engineers need to be able to manage the complexity of globalised business and its supply chain, while also considering societal concerns. In addition, we need to equip young engineers with the right business skills: Many disruptive startups and innovations have failed over the past decade, as the entrepreneurs did not know how to manage a business. These needs and challenges inspired EIT Manufacturing to provide a doctoral programme that offers top-notch research studies while also providing the relevant hands-on, business and entrepreneurial skills needed by the next generation of manufacturers.
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The programme is a powerful complement to traditional PhD research studies, with a learning-by-doing approach offering separate courses in innovation and entrepreneurship, including hands-on experience in turning an idea into a new product or service, and later, perhaps, creating a new business. Students learn to work transversally and build a multicultural network and mindset. They are continuously challenged, thanks to a hands-on pedagogical approach, based on real business cases solved at Teaching and Learning factories and on industrial premises, and presented through hackathons and summer and winter schools. Students also are offered company internships, which are related to their research topic.
EIT Manufacturing estimates that up to 10% of students who graduate from the programme will create a new business startup and another 10% will develop innovative products as an output of their research and disruptive ideas. Ongoing collaboration with manufacturers and research centres will contribute to a 90% employability rate among the post-PhD students, who will be eligible for highly specialised roles.
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The EIT Manufacturing Doctoral School started its activities in 2020 and achieved the following results:
- Definition of the EIT Manufacturing Doctoral School model and programme.
- Setup of the Scientific and Industrial Committee (SIC).
- Start of EIT Manufacturing Doctoral School activity, with the EIT Manufacturing Winter School 2020.
- Accreditation of the EIT Label for the EITM Doctoral School programme, and identification of the first EITM Alumni community members.
- Publication of the first Call for Proposals for the EIT Manufacturing Doctoral School programme for 2021.
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Creating such a versatile Doctoral Program would not have been possible without EIT Manufacturing’s large and heterogeneous partnership, consisting of industries and research centres keen to provide innovative infrastructures and laboratories, and to acquire the best talent.
The different EIT Manufacturing pillars also contribute to supporting students in developing their business ideas and to finding venture capital.
Thanks to the EIT Model, the programme has been co-created with members of industry, integrating real-life industrial and business challenges and allowing the students to turn their research ideas into feasible innovations and startups. The EIT Manufacturing ecosystem supports students by providing access to research infrastructures, incubators and accelerators, as well as opportunities for attracting venture capital. Students also receive the highly valued EIT Labelled Double Degree diploma.
The EIT Manufacturing Doctoral School is part of a network of other EIT community Doctoral Schools, and students have the possibility to join the EIT Alumni community, which gives them exposure to a diverse and international environment where they can develop new ideas involving the different sectors that the community combines, from health, to energy, to raw materials and climate change, etc.