PhD in industry: The best of both worlds?

Was it easy for you, as a foreigner, to find a position in Munich?

I wouldn’t say it was super easy. I quickly realised after arriving that it would be hard to find a position outside academia without speaking the local language. I think I was very lucky, as I had just happened to send an unsolicited application to baseclick and coincidentally had the background they were looking for. In total, it took me only three months between arriving in Germany and receiving the offer. There were another few months between the offer and the actual start of the PhD, which I used to study German.

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Being invited based on an unsolicited application… Does that mean you had no competition for the same position?

No, I did have competition. They told me afterwards that they had many more applications once they advertised the PhD position. But lucky me, I coincidentally had the background they were looking for.

My primary aim was to transition from academia to industry.

You signed up for a PhD position but were actually looking for a “normal job”. Why did you choose the PhD?

My main aim was to transition from academia to industry. I therefore did not seriously consider doing a PhD. But once I was offered a role at a company I really liked, I became very excited about it.

You are at the end of your PhD. Are you still excited about it?

Definitely! I think it is a very good way to do your PhD. I learned a lot about industry, including product preparation, shipping, and customer contact. At the same time, I have stayed very much attached to academia, doing research, publishing, attending conferences, and participating in research group meetings. I really had the best of both worlds!

Publishing, conferences and participation in research group meetings… how do they all fit together?

My PhD is part of the EscoDNA (European School of DNA Nanotechnology) network. This is a network of researchers from industry and academia, funded by the European Commission under the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) as part of the Marie Curie Initial Training Network. Within this network, there are certain requirements. For example, I need to attend one international conference a year. We also agreed that I could publish my research, and I have. I have three publications already and am currently writing the fourth. Furthermore, I am enrolled at the university, so I can participate in activities around their PhD programme as well.

You need to have a supervisor within academia. Did you have to search for one yourself, or was it arranged beforehand?

I had to “search” for my academic supervisor. Now that might sound like a challenge, but as the company baseclick was founded by Prof. Dr. Thomas Carell, a well-known scientist at LMU, and my day-to-day industrial supervisor, Dr. Antonio Manetto, did his PhD with him, it was obvious to ask him to be my supervisor. And he accepted me.

What role does your academic supervisor play in your PhD programme?

I attend the weekly group meetings of Thomas Carell’s research group. I know the PhD students there, and they know me. I present my work once a year and receive feedback and input on my research.

Can you speak freely about your work at the academic group meetings?

Generally, yes. If I were really working on a new product that baseclick wants to bring to market, this might be different, but I mostly work on existing products and use methods that are IP-protected by baseclick.

I have less academic freedom, but as long as the budget allows, I can still follow my scientific interests.

What distinguishes an industry PhD from an academic PhD?

The research itself is more applied, which I really liked. I have less academic freedom, but as long as the budget allows, I can still follow my scientific interests.

The work environment is very different from academia. I was the first PhD student at baseclick, and for a long time I was the only one. The other people are employees and may not all share the same research background. Of course, I could have daily scientific discussions with my industrial supervisors, Dr. Antonio Manetto and Dr. Thomas Frischmuth, but it is different from academia, where your whole environment is in the same boat. At the beginning, I struggled with that, but as I got to know the PhD students in Prof. Thomas Carell’s group and some bachelor’s and master’s students arrived at baseclick, I dealt with it better. Today we even have a second PhD student at baseclick, so it is not an issue anymore.

For safety reasons, no one is allowed to work alone in the lab at baseclick. This means that, unlike academic PhD students, I had much less flexibility in my lab hours. Now that there is a second PhD student, these time restrictions are less of a challenge, as we can work late together. On the positive side, this initial inflexibility helped me develop strong time-management skills!