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Increased public investment in PhD education to drive innovation has led to a recent rapid growth in the number of PhD graduates. Academic labour markets have not developed at the same pace. An ever-larger share of the graduates is finding employment in industry. The transition from academia to industry is not always easy. The present study aims to provide insights into the role played by PhDs' networks in the job search after graduation. Our data comprise interviews with industry-employed doctoral graduates in STEM disciplines from Sweden, Norway and the UK. Our findings show that PhDs' autonomously built personal networks can help match their specific scientific expertise with labour market demands. We distinguish country-specific patterns and characteristics of the transition, in which regional career paths are more (Scandinavia) or less (the UK) noticeable. The study has practical implications, in particular for PhD students and graduates, related to their career orientation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Doctoral education was primarily designed to answer the human resources needs of academia. However, nowadays, increasing numbers of doctorate holders seek employment outside academia. Accordingly, doctoral education can be one of the means by which universities take part in the development of industry in their regions. This study explores whether and how doctoral-level skills are being adapted to the needs of local industrial employers in two different contexts. Two research and science parks situated next to research-intensive universities in Sweden and Spain were chosen as cases for an exploratory and comparative study. In these parks, local industrial employers conduct R&D activities that make them potentially attractive destinations for doctoral graduates. Similarities in the cases were found regarding the process of adaptation of doctoral education at the adjacent universities to meet the industrial employers' needs in the parks. Discrepancies are also highlighted regarding stages of development, institutional settings, geography and culture. Implications for several stakeholders are formulated to improve the process analysed in the study concerning better alignment of doctoral education with industrial employers' need for generic skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even though the doctoral degree was originally designed for an academic career, there is an increasingly important labour market for doctorate holders outside academia, mainly because of a shortage of job opportunities within it. Doctoral degrees are granted only by universities; thus, universities are the only suppliers of the doctoral workforce to the labour market. Understanding the needs of non-academic employers is thus crucial if universities are to adapt their doctoral education curriculum. Many studies have analyzed labour markets for doctorate holders at national and transnational scales, but few studies focus on the regional scale. The present study explores regional data for Catalonia in Spain on the employment situation of doctorate holders in order to define the characteristics of the regional, non-academic labour market for doctorate holders. Descriptive statistics suggest a high retention rate of doctorate holders within the region and a large part of doctorate holders (two-thirds) having a job that does not require a doctoral degree. This study highlights the existence of a skills mismatch that might be linked to the preference for a better paid or more stable job, or to the lack of development of skills that represent added value in the eyes of employers. These characteristics can be formulated as hypotheses to be tested in further qualitative or quantitative studies. They have several implications for universities, non-academic employers and regional policy-makers, such as the need to work on the valorization of the doctoral degree in the non-academic labour market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]