Many undergraduate projects within the College of Engineering, Mathematics and Physical Sciences contain an element of industry collaboration, ranging from a company expressing an interest in the results of a student’s research, through to companies fully sponsoring a student to research a specific area, including visits to the industrial partner’s premises. A review of current practice took place to identify key issues and examples of good practice.

Engineering in particular has excellent industry-linked opportunities for students and the added benefit of penultimate year students undertaking an individual research project, which may be employer-led. This meant that students who had completed this module were still available at the university to provide reflective accounts of their experiences.

Multidisciplinary student projects with an element of industry collaboration were found to be relatively rare, with students preferring to undertake projects where they felt that their supervisor had a good knowledge of the specific subject matter contained within the project. Timetabling was also an issue – the high contact hours of STEM students meant that cross-disciplinary collaboration was difficult. However, projects involving different subject areas within disciplines (e.g. Mechanical Engineering and Electronic Engineering) were fairly common.

Several potential barriers to successful engagement were identified through the review, including intellectual property issues, uncertainties in how to approach employers and disparities in expectations between the academic supervisor, the student and the industrial partner. The project outputs and outcomes aim to address these issues and provide practical solutions.