Periodic Reporting for period 1 - EMPOWER (Entrepreneurial Multidisciplinary scientists forging Pathways Onto clean Water, sustainable Energy and Resources)
Reporting period: 2022-01-01 to 2023-12-31
EMPOWER is an innovative doctoral training programme hosted by Wetsus (NL), in collaboration with 5 universities (Wageningen University (NL), University of Twente (NL), University of Groningen (NL), Technical University of Delft (NL), and Boku University (AU)) aiming to encourage entrepreneurship in research. The objective is to create a highly demanded type of professional in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics), with the skillset to operate between academic chairs, established knowledge-intensive companies, start-ups, public authorities, and the general public. Overall, the doctoral training programme consists of four main, interconnected parts, which are dedicated to developing different skills: research, multidisciplinary expertise, entrepreneurship, and personal development. In particular, Early Stage Researchers (ESRs) enrolling in EMPOWER are asked to integrate their PhD path with an integrated business-oriented training (MBA), which allows for a dual degree. This dual training is fundamental to prepare STEM PhD students for careers in entrepreneurship. The objective of this initial period was to evaluate candidates to enroll in a total of 14 PhD positions and coordinate their training within the four above-mentioned parts. The writing and publication of scientific papers will unravel the dissemination of the results. The expected outcome of EMPOWER is that all the ESRs will be able to successfully complete both research and MBA education. When the final objective is successfully achieved, the perspective of Wetsus is to introduce this as a brand-new concept of PhD education, training scientific entrepreneurs which will in turn train universities and companies into speaking the same language.
EMPOWER enrolled 13 PhD students in two calls, within research projects related to different disciplines of water technology. The 13 ESRs are currently actively conducting their research at Wetsus and the corresponding university, while following training in four different domains: research techniques, transferable skills, personal development, and MBA education. In the first period, the first EMPOWER call for 14 PhD positions was launched on 6 September 2021 on the dedicated Wetsus website, and in the Euraxess website. The EMPOWER PhD Programme introduction event, a webinar was launched online through a dedicated stream link. The call was open until Friday 29 October 2021. In total, 1001 candidates applied for the 14 PhD positions advertised on the website at the closuring date of the call, which were evaluated through a three-round procedure, involving the evaluation of application documents, a video interview, and a recruitment challenge between the best candidates for each position. In these three rounds, activities between the Wetsus, the Universities staff and a selected panel of external evaluators were coordinated by the Project Coordinator (PC). In the first call (which was conducted online due to the COVID19 restrictions in place), 8 of the 14 PhD positions were filled, and for the remaining 6, a second call was launched from 21 March to 9 May 2022, recording a total of 508 applicants. After this second call, 5 ESRs were hired, giving a total of 13 ESRs enrolled in EMPOWER. The 13 ESRs started their projects in different months, ranging from M4 to M13, so their final completion dates will be different in comparison to the EMPOWER timeline. All the 13 ESRs are currently working on their research projects, interacting with both the Wetsus and University supervisors. During the first period, The EMPOWER PC monitored the ESRs progress in their doctoral training, including the supervision process between Wetsus and the corresponding university. PC also coordinated the trainings schedule together with the Wetsus Human Resource (HR) department for the variety of courses planned to support the career development of each ESR, ranging from research training to transferable skills, personal development, and business-oriented skills. Among the others, courses on personal development followed by the ESRs in this first period included “presentation skills and public speaking”, “communication styles”, “student supervision and culture differences”, and “personal talents”. Contemporarily to their research work in the laboratory, EMPOWER ESRs started to follow the MBA education, organized in collaboration with Business School Netherlands (BSN), in September 2023, and they are currently entering the second out of three phases of the training. Most of the 13 ESRs are now in the process of writing their first research paper, which will ignite the dissemination of the results produced by the doctoral program.
The EMPOWER ESRs are enrolled for 4.5 years to achieve the completion of both the research training and the MBA education, which will result in a dual degree. The expected result is that all the 13 ESRs will be able to complete both paths. When the final objective is successfully achieved, the perspective of Wetsus is to introduce this as a brand-new concept of PhD education. The resulting next-generation PhD will be a scientific entrepreneur that fosters the commercialization of scientific discoveries, generates a clear communication channel between industry and university and creates pathways for their coexistence. The combination of research, business and personal development training goes beyond the state of the art of conventional PhD education, where ESRs are often subjected to an elevated degree of stress, and they struggle to find a job position after obtaining their PhD degree. This innovative vision of PhD education, while aiming to bridge academia and industry, will support the sustainable development goal (SDG) number 9 “Industry, innovation and infrastructure”.