Which skills? A critical perspective on the skills facilitating the transfer of third-cycle students to knowledge-intensive SMEs

This Research Full Paper relates to public-private innovation ecosystems. This loosely knit form of cooperation allows for beneficial activities such as knowledge transfer, dissemination of novel technology, and recruitment. In these contexts students graduating from third-cycle education should be able to find opportunities for transferring to knowledge-intensive positions in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). However, a 3-year study of the reasons why firms approach public organisations within a Europe-wide, public-private innovation ecosystem suggests that students might struggle to find such opportunities. Through a questionnaire provided to all firms approaching the ecosystem we identify recruitment as one of their lowest ranked interests. By interviewing members of the public organisations found in the ecosystem we identify how cooperation is initiated and maintained, and how this influences the opportunities for students to transfer into industry. The results provide nuance to the current emphasis in skill development within third-cycle (engineering) education. It is rarely recognized that fostering technical skill and academic entrepreneurship might not be enough to allow all types and sizes of firms to receive engineering students. Particularly, this study identifies the academic and industrial boundary spanning roles at knowledge-intensive SMEs as important. These roles require a third-cycle education that early on hones skills that typically do not become critical until much later for students that pursue an academic path - e.g., the inter-organisational project management skills necessary to effectively seek research funding or to negotiate goal alignment between organisations. We argue that to allow third-cycle students to practice the finer points of such skills, universities need to evolve more distributed support structures for innovation that integrate in-depth engineering knowledge with innovation skills and have an increased focus on human and social capital.