University–industry links : the ‘front line’

Projects involving industry partners are attractive as they enable you to interact with people in their working world, and see results of your work being applied by your commercial partners. The opportunity to interact with industry partners while undertaking postgraduate study is increasing as universities develop closer relationships with industries. Industry-linked postgraduate projects offer many advantages. However, there are a number of challenges associated with the involvement of industry partners that often do not exist in other postgraduate projects (see also Chapter 8 in this book). This chapter will outline some of the challenges of industry-linked graduate research projects and strategies to address these challenges.