Introduction: Innovative industrial doctorates: issues and prospects

From an international and comparative perspective, the emergence of innovative doctoral programs has gained increasing attention over the last 20 years. Under the label of ‘innovative’ doctoral program, we include different experiences featuring the closer cooperation between universities and businesses to better match the needs of the labour market. Professional doctorates and industrial PhD are the most studied and developed typologies falling into this category. Professional doctorates have been around in the UK since the early 1990s. The aim of these programs is to integrate professional and academic knowledge, allowing students to make an original contribution to both theory and practice in their field, and to develop professional skills by the means of (professional) knowledge. These programs differ from the so called engineering doctorates (EngD) not only because of the sectoral specialisation, but also because the first ones can vary from abstract/theoretical to applied industry research, while EngD research usually concerns a specific topic, related to the business activities of the industrial sponsor. Similar to EngD on this side, but with a wider extension in terms of sectors and disciplines concerned, are the Industrial PhDs. As pointed out by the European Commission, the notion of ‘industrial PhD’ should be given the widest possible interpretation: “The term ‘industry’ is used in the widest sense, including all fields of workplaces and public engagement, from industry to business, government, NGOs, charities and cultural institutions”.