An exploratory study of the Spanish Industrial Doctoral Training Programme: the First Cohort Follow-Up

Governments across the world have implemented Industrial Doctoral Training Programmes to stimulate university-industry-government relationships. However, despite the growing academic interest in such programmes, further studies are required to evaluate their effectiveness and to describe the interactions between relevant actors. The purpose of this exploratory study is to examine the particular case of the Spanish Industrial Doctoral Training Programme ( SIDTP ). Using qualitative and quantitative data from several sources, we provide a broad characterization of the programme and its funding regime in the period 2014–2022 and a detailed assessment of the first cohort of participants by examining two indicators: rates of programme completion and successful doctoral thesis defence. The SIDTP is an example of a cooperative policy – especially addressed to small to medium-sized businesses – whose implementation requires the interaction of the three helices. Despite the quality of its design, our results show a high drop-out rate and a low number of successfully completed theses.