Doctoral Consulting

1
"Doctoral Consulting"

• A partnership between universities and
  enterprises toward a better recognition of
  doctors' skills

2
Contents

• The French context
• The UPMC context
• Existing partnerships between enterprises and
  universities
• The way the early stage researchers (ESRs) are
  prepared for careers in companies the
  Individual Training Plan
• A new possibility consulting for early stage
  researchers

3
The French context

• Companies and universities have difficulties to
  work together
• The academic staff is often not aware of the
  careers opportunities in enterprises and the
  fact that they have competences that can interest
  companies
• Universities are not often armed to deal with
  companies (ex on juridical and commercial
  questions)
• The staff in enterprises is often not aware of
  the quality and the added value of the academic
  training
• The culture for research and innovation is weak
  inside big companies (the engineer culture is
  the mainstream)
• ? A difficult background

4
The UPMC context

• Direct partnerships between research units and
  companies
• About 300 doctoral projects are funded by private
  funds (10 of all doctoral projects)
• Research collaborations
• Technological transfers, start-ups creations,
• Under the coordination of the Department for
  Industrial Relationships of the university

5
The UPMC context

• Institutional level
• Contacts with Human Resources department in big
  companies
• Meeting seminars a company comes to UPMC and
  presents its activities and careers
  opportunities, in front of early stage
  researchers
• Visits small groups of ESRs visit a department
  in a company
• Permanent training of ESRs on career development
  issues
• ? Responsibility the Doctoral Institute
• Associative level
• The ESRs and PhDs Associations organize meetings
  between PhDs in enterprises and ESR (social and
  professional networking, advices and testimonies)

6
ESR career development

• Each ESR has to define with his supervisor and
  doctoral school - his own Individual Training
  Plan to develop and serve his own professional
  project
• No traditional courses but interactive workshop
  and seminars
• No academic trainers but specialized consultants
• A large training offer
• Management (project management, team management
• Communication
• Reflection on professional project, job market
  mechanisms, job searching techniques
• ? ESR are well prepared if they involve
  themselves to work in companies

7
Doctoral consulting

• A new system, launched at the national level last
  September
• The principle
• Companies propose consulting missions to
  universities
• Universities select an ESR with the good profile
  and the ESR complete the mission
• Companies pay the universities for the missions
• Universities pay the ESR

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Interests

• For companies
• To answer to a non-resolved problem
• To discover or test the ESRs competences
• To find future workmates
• To initiate a partnership with a university
• For ESRs
• To discover new professional environments and
  methods
• To deepen a professional project
• To develop a professional network
• To better understand what you can bring to other
  structures than academic ones

9
Interests

• For universities
• To reinforce its links with businesses
• To find companies for other collaborations
• To highlight the skills of its employees (the
  ESRs)
• To better prepare the ESRs to their future careers

10
An institutional involvement

• Responsibilities for the institution (university)
• To inform companies on this new system (because
  no national information campaign has be done)
• To select, brief and train ESR interested in
  consulting
• To elaborate mission contracts (IP issues)
• To evaluate and manage the costs of this system
• Involvement of the Industrial Relationships
  Department of the university
• Involvement of the Doctoral Institute

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What kind of missions ?

• Depending on the needs of companies
• Methodological, scientific, technical consulting
• Technology watch
• Feasibility study
• Bibliography study
• Training
• Tools development
• Globally everywhere where the question how to
  manage changes is asked

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Examples

• Mission 1
• A small enterprise in computer science
• Security issues in programming (an upstream
  study)
• Output a report with recommendations
• Duration 32 days
• Mission 2
• A big company in cosmetics
• A technical work on proteins with mass
  spectrometry analysis
• Output tests and technical report
• Duration 27 days
• Mission 3
• A big company in instrumentation
• An organizational audit of a commercial
  department
• Output recommendations
• Duration 20 days

13
How does it work ?
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Workload and remuneration

• The doctoral consultant has to work 32 days on
  the duration of his contract (1 year)?
• These 32 days may be done during several missions
  in different companies
• The work time for each mission can be organized
  differently depending on the needs of the company
• Ex 1 day per week during X weeks, 10 consecutive
  days
• Remuneration
• The doctoral consultant is paid 4025 (including
  social contribution) for 32 days of mission
  (equivalent to 2100 per month)
• Prices for a company
• Between 300 and 700 per mission day
• Depending on the company size an the mission
  duration (UPMC wants to facilitate the use of
  this system by SMEs)

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Conclusion

• A new interesting system to create links between
  universities, companies and ESRs.
• Never forget a strong institutional involvement
  is required
• It will takes time before companies really use
  this system
• A global evaluation will be made one year after
  the beginning of the system (January 2009 for
  UPMC)