New PhD students to strengthen collaboration between academia and industry
12 Dec 2024
The KK Foundation is funding two new PhD students at University West. Their work aims to strengthen industry’s transition to Industry 5.0 in different ways: one focusing on work-related health, risk and change management, and the other on material circularity in additive manufacturing.
New PhD students will in different ways contribute to strengthen the industry in the transition to Industry 5.0. Photo: Maja Brand for Teknikföretagen
Celebrating its 30th anniversary, the KK Foundation is funding PhD students at 22 Swedish universities with KK environments. This initiative seeks to enhance research environments at these universities and foster a generation of PhD students who complete their doctoral studies in collaboration with external stakeholders.
University West has chosen to announce PhD positions within its two strongest research environments: Work-Integrated Learning (WIL) and Production Technology. These areas lead cutting-edge research in close collaboration with industry and other societal actors.
Sustainable work life in industry
The PhD student in Work-Integrated Learning will focus on work-related health issues and risk and change management related to the industry’s significant technological transition. The CoWORK 5.0 research project emphasizes identifying and analyzing human-centered perspectives for shaping a sustainable work life in industry.
“We see that work-related health, risk, and change management are critical for fostering social sustainability in industry and achieving global sustainability goals for decent work and economic growth,” says Kristina Areskoug Josefsson, supervisor at University West.
“To address these societal challenges, it is a strength that researchers in CoWORK 5.0 adopt interdisciplinary perspectives, combining expertise from fields such as health sciences, engineering, and business administration.”
“With the ongoing rapid technological development, there is a significant need for research and development in manufacturing industries, focusing on Industrial Work-Integrated Learning (I-AIL) and how these changes impact people.”
Circular material usage
The PhD student in Production Technology will specialize in material circularity for additive manufacturing processes. Aligned with global sustainability goals, recycling and reusing materials are becoming increasingly relevant. University West’s production technology researchers are committed to enhancing material usage and process efficiency in additive manufacturing.
The PhD student will work on multiple projects, developing monitoring capabilities for feedstock materials to enable sustainable processing in methods like Directed Energy Deposition and Powder Bed Fusion.
“The PhD will support important ongoing activities at University West to enhance the possibilities of a sustainable use of materials”, says Jörg Volpp, supervisor at University West.
“Additive Manufacturing has a high potential to save material from a design perspective, but often powder material is not reused. Therefore, the impact of different material status, e.g. recycled and reused materials, will be evaluated for their capabilities to be used for manufacturing and re-manufacturing.”
Recruitment for the PhD positions is ongoing. The plan is for the students to start their doctoral studies alongside new research projects in spring 2025.
Read more:
PhD project RAMP – Robust additive manufacturing in production and material re-use