Meet Arnthor – visiting PhD student studying university – industry collaborations
Arnthor Gunnarsson is a PhD student at the Department of Materials and Production at from Aalborg University (AAU), Denmark. He has become a visiting scholar at the Gothenburg Centre on knowledge-intensive innovation ecosystems (U-GOT KIES), and will be visiting Gothenburg for 6 months during Fall 2022.
Arnthor is originally from Reykjavik, Iceland, but has lived in Denmark much of his life. He received his Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering from The University of Iceland. He then moved to Denmark where he worked with gas meter calibrations at FORCE Technology, first as a specialist, and later as quality responsible.
- I was involved with developing and maintaining technical systems, and as responsible for the quality management part. As part of that I collaborated with experts Europe to create the world’s most accurate standard for gas meter calibrations. The collaborations I was part of with private and public organisations in Europe is also partly what inspired my research topic, says Arnthor.
He became interested in management related issues about innovation and collaboration and studied for a Master’s degree in Management Engineering (Operations and Innovation Management), and subsequently started a PhD in December 2020 to further dive into his area of interest.
- In my PhD education, I am focusing on collaborative university-industry PhD projects, where I am particularly interested in how firms engage with the PhD projects and what value they get from that.
Interested in the collaborating firm’s perspective
In Denmark and Sweden, PhD projects can be conducted in collaboration with and often co-funded by firms in the industry. As direct research funding is increasingly difficult to come by, having industry co-funded PhD projects is an increasingly used mechanism in Europe, and can create a lot of value for the stakeholders.
- In my research, I focus on such projects, where I am particularly interested in the collaborating firm’s perspective, their engagement and value creation. And while this happens there is of course also a PhD student producing and being educated in practice driven research.
At the Department of Economy and Society, Karin Berg recently defended her PhD thesis about firm-employed PhD students.
Gothenburg and U-GOT KIES the obvious choice
Arnthor came to Gothenburg and our centre because he has been inspired by several papers from the research within the Gothenburg Centre on knowledge-intensive innovation ecosystems (U-GOT KIES).
- Later in my PhD, when it came time for me to find an external research stay, I found out there was existing collaboration between my department at AAU and U-GOT KIES. I also found research in U-GOT KIES focusing on the same mechanism that I focus on in my PhD project. So, it ended up being an obvious decision.
- During my time in Sweden, I will have the opportunity to work with experienced researchers that are experts in studying university-industry collaboration. I look forward to being inspired and work with them.
Astrid Heidemann Lassen, Aalborg University, is involved in the long-term collaboration with Professor Maureen McKelvey and her research group at the University of Gothenburg. Professor Lassen was previously part of the Visiting Professor Programme (VPP) and currently part of the U-GOT KIES Steering Committee.