2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Partnerships between industry and universities are a vital first step in addressing persistent shortcomings of the U.S. doctoral education system. Although often difficult to establish, these collaborations are essential for preparing a doctoral workforce that meets the evolving expectations of most employers. Students trained through such partnerships will gain a research mindset oriented toward solving real-world problems, an outcome not usually delivered by the current system.

Three key challenges have been identified in forming desired industry-university partnerships: (i) limited corporate capacity to commit support for the duration of PhD projects; (ii) complexities surrounding intellectual property (IP) and publication agreements; and (iii) misaligned timelines for research pursued by universities and industry. To find solutions to these challenges, seventy-seven leaders from academia, industry, funding agencies, nonprofit organizations, professional societies, and international institutions convened in Washington, D.C. last August. They identified four key takeaways for systemic change: (a) approach partnerships strategically, not transactionally; (b) introduce flexibility into PhD requirements; (c) develop standardized agreement templates related to IP and publications; and (d) explore alternatives to the traditional PhD model. Participants also highlighted practices needed to put these ideas into action, specifically: adopting collective approaches to forming partnerships, maintaining consistent and transparent communication, and prioritizing follow-up actions with sustained attention.

From these insights, nine potential solutions were developed, ranked in order of increasing implementation complexity: (1) involve graduate students in shaping their programs; (2) increase flexibility in project start dates to allow for timely outcomes that benefit the industry partner; (3) improve the process for forming partnerships; (4) shorten the duration of PhD programs by re-examining coursework and other milestones; (5) revise faculty reward criteria to include engagement with industry; (6) establish upfront alignment between academic and industry researchers; (7) build strategic industry-university partnerships at the institutional level; (8) create standardized national templates for agreements; and (9) establish university consortia to collectively address common STEM graduate education issues. While solutions 1–5 can be pursued independently by universities, the remaining more complex reforms will require coordination with industry partners and leadership from funding agencies. Note that such coordinated models are already standard in several countries (e.g., Germany, the UK, and Belgium) where industry-university partnerships are central to doctoral training.

Finally, actionable recommendations were provided for four stakeholder groups: academia, industry, government, and doctoral students. Post-workshop survey results indicated optimism about adoption, with most respondents affirming a strong likelihood of implementing key recommendations at their institutions. Collectively, these outcomes represent an important first roadmap for strengthening STEM doctoral training in the United States. The implementation of this roadmap is expected to prepare universities to meet the challenge of training the necessary STEM PhDs, especially as federal policies are being intensely revised and funding for research is reduced.