Industrial Doctorates at IQS: Business Innovation and Talent

The Government of Catalonia’s Industrial Doctorates Plan promotes scientific research and industrial innovation through collaboration between companies and universities, including mechanisms for attracting talent. This initiative enables companies to develop R&D&i projects with the support of leading academic institutions by combining academic research with practical applications in business and innovation environments.

A company research project, in which a doctoral student conducts their training and research activity in collaboration with a university, is the key element of the industrial doctorate. The programme offers a joint funding system that benefits both the company and the university:

• Company: Funding up to €22,800.
• University: Funding up to €37,800 (includes tuition, mobility, training, publications, and other research group expenses).

Since the first edition in 2013, IQS-URL has actively contributed to this initiative with a 100% success rate, consolidating its status as a leader in knowledge transfer. IQS acts as a bridge between higher education and business through its 14 SGR research groups recognized by the Government of Catalonia.

Currently, IQS-URL is conducting 13 industrial doctorate projects in various sectors such as biomedicine, biotechnology, materials science, sustainability, and the environment.

IQS offers Industrial Doctorates in four main areas to promote innovation in different sectors:

• Health: Advanced therapies, biomedicine, nanomedicine, and new drug development.
• Environment and Sustainability: Circular economy, natural resources, and energy.
• Chemistry and Biotechnology: Electrochemistry, analytical and organic chemistry, biochemistry, microbiology, materials, and nanotechnology.
• Industrial, Economic, and Social Transformation: Manufacturing technologies, digitization, Industry 4.0, artificial intelligence, innovation, neuromarketing, and consumer behaviour studies.

• Industrial production of vitamin B12 (HTBA): Development of a new cultivation method with Propionibacterium freudenreichii to improve the production of vitamin B12 in industrial processes.
• Rehabilitation of pipes with CIPP (AGBAR): Improvement of the rehabilitation technique of ditchless drinking water pipes, optimizing materials and quality control protocols.
• New Therapeutic Targets for Medulloblastoma (Oncoheroes Biosciences): Discovery of New Treatments for Paediatric Tumours through Drug Repositioning and Bioinformatic Analysis.

If your company would like to work together on research and innovation projects with research staff from a university with a high scientific level at the forefront of research, contact the IQS Tech Transfer team and let’s talk!