Electrical Engineering collaborates with the industry

Collaboration between academia, departments, and industry

During the forum speakers from both Volvo Cars and the Swedish Environmental Institute IVL attended. Additionally, Marianna Ivashina, Director of the competence center WiTECH (Wireless Infrastructure Technology at Chalmers) and representatives from the School of Business, Economics and Law at the University of Gothenburg were present. The speakers highlighted, among other things, the conditions for collaborations within their operations and exciting insights related to the benefits that arise in collaboration.

Mutual Strategy

As part of the department’s strategy, there are currently several active Adjunct Professors at Chalmers. Anders Karlström, Head of Department at Electrical Engineering, emphasizes that the companies are positive about this type of collaboration as it is also in their strategy.

“You build a common strategy over what is important in 10-15 years, those are the time horizons that are important,” Anders Karlström explains.

“To build competence in the field of electric power, we said that we would like to have people from ABB, current Hitachi, and we brought in five people. It was a real effort, and thanks to that, we got access to current topics in the industry. We wanted to get better at radar technology, so we brought in two Adjunct Professors from Saab. They work very closely with Tomas McKelvey and Thomas Eriksson at Electrical Engineering, and that has made us good at radar technology right now,” Anders says.

Adjunct Professorship

An Adjunct Professorship means that 20 percent of the employee’s time is spent on education and research. In 2016, Electrical Engineering made a strategic decision to increase the number of Adjunct Professors and strengthen collaboration between the industry and the department.

One advantage that industrial companies see, is that student contacts sometimes lead to recruitments, as the Adjunct Professor connects with students and future industry colleagues.

Is there anything you want to highlight in relation to the collaboration forum?

“I see the group discussions as particularly important. The exchange is mutual since companies can access the competence that exists within academia and vice versa. Together we can do something unique. It is all about the Adjunct Professors having an unique competence, because not everyone can become an Adjunct Professor,” Anders Karlström concludes.