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NSF pilots 4-year PhDs with industry research placements

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Re: NSF pilots 4-year PhDs with industry research placements

#71

Post by raphman »

zmb_ wrote: post #61
math_dandy wrote: post #19

My wife did her mathematics PhD under an analogous structure in Germany where it’s fairly common. She was supervised by a professor at the University of Munich and a lab at Bosch, wrote and defended a thesis as usual. Employed in industry immediately after graduating. A great experience.

During my academic career I worked at a top German research university and advised multiple of these projects. On the surface it’s a good deal for everyone: the professor gets increased publication and graduate counts without having to pay for it, the company gets a top student working on their research problem very cheaply, and the student gets a PhD, an employment contract, and often a visa. The reality was unfortu…

I guess it depends. While doing my PhD at a top German research university, our chair advised multiple of these projects, too (e.g., BMW, Siemens, Audi).

Yes - the downsides you mention are all true. But similar downsides apply to most PhD students working directly at the university - either you have some teaching load and administrative duties, or you work in an externally funded project and have to write project reports and do a lot of non-research stuff, too.

As I mentioned elsewhere in the thread, if you want to have an academic career, doing a PhD in industry is not the best choice. But if you want to work in R&D or as a group leader in industry, these PhD positions might be a good stepping stone.

Re: NSF pilots 4-year PhDs with industry research placements

#72

Post by aborsy »

France has a similar program called CIFRE and it is bad.

An academic pairs with a buddy in industry. This relationship usually remains fixed in their careers. The representative in the company hires an engineer, makes a CIFRE contract and asks the academic to register the student and takes care of paperwork. There is no open call, competitive submission of proposals, a committee and a process. I don’t know how government is OK with this. The company sends the information about the recruitment to the government and gets tax waiver. Therefore, the company hires an engineer paid by taxpayers, nearly free for the company. A small amount of money is sent to the academic for conference travel etc. In many cases, student remains in the company and there is no need for academic other than for periodic paperwork. Importantly, the student works on tasks assigned by the company, which in many cases is not really research. It could be product improvement, mechanical work, client work, or some R&D or short term research. It’s not science or long term research, and no classes are involved. Next year, next student, it will be the same pair.

The program attracts students because they want jobs (in many cases their contracts is extended after 3 years of PhD, and they are actually incentivized to work well during that 3 years and be a good employee). Companies like it because of essentially free engineers and government rapport. Academics are content because they can say they have a student (even if they don’t see the student much if at all sometimes), cite collaboration with industry, and get some money for travel. The academic cannot complain, or require student spend more time in university, because the company would say, we will replace you next time with another academic who will be happy to sign off to paperwork and not to cause issues. The three parties are happy, and the taxpayer looses, because of a badly set up program. Maybe the American version will work, not the French version!

Re: NSF pilots 4-year PhDs with industry research placements

#73

Post by runtime_lens »

Hot take but academia and industry don't have fundamentally different goals anymore. The real challenge is making sure students don't end up satisfying neither. A PhD that isn't published enough for academia and isn't impactful enough for industry is the worst outcome.

Re: NSF pilots 4-year PhDs with industry research placements

#74

Post by psyklic »

gwd wrote: post #37
moshun wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I understand the upside, the reality of why it’s being pursued in the United States is that this is intended to drive academia into an advanced version of a trade school.

Do the math: The number of professorial positions is not growing (or not very quickly). Under steady-state, each professor only needs to train one single tenure-track PhD in their entire career . (Or maybe 10 professors need to train 11-12 students, to account for various forms of attrition.) If you want more PhD's than that, you have to figure out a place for them to work; industry is a good "pressure relief valve".

The goal of PhD programs has never been to have every student become a professor. Also, strong STEM PhD students generally don't need much help finding jobs after they graduate. Claiming that PhD students "aren't prepared" for industry careers is simply saying that students lack industry experience (obviously, being students!).

The problem here -- and why universities even do research at all -- is that industry's support of basic science is not very stable. At least when I was in school, industry research generally was more applied and engineering-focused.

Re: NSF pilots 4-year PhDs with industry research placements

#75

Post by contubernio »

Europe has already pushed shorter PhDs with the excuse of facilitating development in technology/industry. It's been a huge failure in mathematics for various reasons among which are: 1. Students don't have time to develop autonomy and independence, so this remains for the postdoctoral period. 2. Students are forced into publishing things that shouldn't be published (it's often a requirement to terminate a doctorate) and these are shallower and less complete than they should be.

The true motivation seems to be that it is cheaper to fund 3 years than 5. Master's degrees have been made obligatory prior to doctorates (in the US this is traditionally not the case) and so are not covered by doctoral funding - rather they are paid for by students in many cases.

It may very well have sense to have a shorter track aimed at industry, but it shouldn't be called a doctorate and all doctorates shouldn't be shunted into this setup.

Re: NSF pilots 4-year PhDs with industry research placements

#76

Post by spwa4 »

Brystephor wrote: post #34
moshun wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I understand the upside, the reality of why it’s being pursued in the United States is that this is intended to drive academia into an advanced version of a trade school.

That sounds like an excellent thing based on that last sentence. Anecdotally, I hear people talk about trade school as being much more practical compared to the majority of traditional 4 year degrees. So I am interpreting a "move towards trade school" as an increase in practicality and therefore utility to the student.

The problem is that this makes it friction-free for the student ... and the actual trade? Your wage. It takes away risk, which everybody likes, until the costs of that start accumulating. It's an excellent way to give the student a very strong reason to avoid applying anywhere else (and make applying elsewhere far less successful), and so effectively to pay them (much) less.

Get a PhD with years of experience, who knows your company, for the price of a secretary.

Re: NSF pilots 4-year PhDs with industry research placements

#77

Post by Skwid »

aborsy wrote: post #72

France has a similar program called CIFRE and it is bad. An academic pairs with a buddy in industry. This relationship usually remains fixed in their careers. The representative in the company hires an engineer, makes a CIFRE contract and asks the academic to register the student and takes care of paperwork. There is no open call, competitive submission of proposals, a committee and a process. I don’t know how govern…

In the UK there is the not entirely dissimilar KTP.

Officially companies apply and are selected on the merit of application, in practice it's dramatically easier for companies already 'in the system' to re-apply.

The engineer (Mostly engineers, but also some scientists) is legally employed by the university, but typically spends all their time at the company. No tax shenanigans, the university's expenses are straight up paid by government.

They don't get a PhD, they just file reports and make presentations to the KTP org representative.

It's fairly common for them to enroll with the university during a KTP though, which sometimes can be paid for from the KTP training budget.

They also get a selection of training courses in business and management subjects, which curiously includes a large section on tax avoidance for small businesses.

Re: NSF pilots 4-year PhDs with industry research placements

#78

Post by [deleted] »

zmb_ wrote: post #61
math_dandy wrote: post #19

My wife did her mathematics PhD under an analogous structure in Germany where it’s fairly common. She was supervised by a professor at the University of Munich and a lab at Bosch, wrote and defended a thesis as usual. Employed in industry immediately after graduating. A great experience.

During my academic career I worked at a top German research university and advised multiple of these projects. On the surface it’s a good deal for everyone: the professor gets increased publication and graduate counts without having to pay for it, the company gets a top student working on their research problem very cheaply, and the student gets a PhD, an employment contract, and often a visa. The reality was unfortu…

[deleted]

Re: NSF pilots 4-year PhDs with industry research placements

#79

Post by Beijinger »

raphman wrote: post #68
Beijinger wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just because of the PhD inflation in Germany. It has little scientific value.

a) No. b) It depends. I know the German system quite well and know people who did their PhD in industry, people who did their PhD in an externally funded research project, and people who pursued a more self-directed PhD while working as a research and teaching assistant. I don't think that there is a general 'PhD inflation' in Germany (though there are some disciplines with this problem). It is well understood by mos…

"The most important outcome of a PhD is not the list of publications but a person who deeply understands a domain, knows how to critically analyze a problem, and finds good solutions. Doing a PhD 'in industry' also allows you to do this. And it gives you a foot in the door at that company."

Interesting though. Not sure you can have an extensive publication list without a deep domain understanding. But an extensive publication list normally assures that you have it.

My professor always said, I don't want to see you PhD thesis, just show me your publication list. Actually, while we were obligated to write a thesis, in his opinion it should be sufficient to just submit your publications.

Re: NSF pilots 4-year PhDs with industry research placements

#80

Post by onetimeusename »

moshun wrote: post #26
math_dandy wrote: post #19

My wife did her mathematics PhD under an analogous structure in Germany where it’s fairly common. She was supervised by a professor at the University of Munich and a lab at Bosch, wrote and defended a thesis as usual. Employed in industry immediately after graduating. A great experience.

While I understand the upside, the reality of why it’s being pursued in the United States is that this is intended to drive academia into an advanced version of a trade school.

It already is. Most PhDs in, let's say CS but probably true for a lot of STEM, just get a job at a tech company. I know a guy who did a PhD in meteorology and now he just programs at Google. The promise of contributing to science and being an academic probably doesn't work out for most. There's actually a big cost to this too, this isn't just an alternative path. It's also costly to non-PhDs who suddenly find themselves competing for jobs against them in careers that really don't need them. At least if we're going to continue printing PhDs it would be great to make them shorter and less costly.
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