The National Science Foundation is devoting $47 million to pilot a four-year Ph.D. model that will give doctoral students experience conducting research for private companies, the agency announced Wednesday. Under the initiative, companies will provide funding so students can conduct dissertation research at their sites for at least a year. Universities will provide the first year of funding for students, while NSF will cover the rest. Private companies will also match funding to cover at least one year of dissertation research through “practical experience” at their sites, NSF said.
The pilot will be spearheaded by the University-Industry Demonstration Partnership, a South Carolina-based nonprofit that began in 2006 under the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Students will be mentored by both academic and private company researchers. Ahead of the launch announced Wednesday, UIDP said it received interest from dozens of universities and private companies.
Participating institutions include Carnegie Mellon University, Dartmouth College, the University of Michigan and the University of Delaware. Interested industry partners include Bayer, DuPont and MassMutual.
The pilot aims to address the shift of Ph.D. graduates toward private industry, but the financial model shifts the traditional burden of support. The program is designed to fund students through their final three years, paying out a total of $75,000 annually per student. This includes a $37,000 stipend, $16,000 for education, and $22,000 for living costs and other expenses. Industry partners are expected to provide at least $100,000 per student over the four years, according to UIDP’s program guide.
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NSF plans to give the $47 million out over five years to help train more than 250 Ph.D. students. The initiative addresses the trend of more Ph.D. students entering private industry following graduation rather than the academic career that a doctorate education is traditionally structured toward. NSF said results from the pilot will “inform future adoption and scaling.”
The NSF said the pilot will help carry out some of the recommendations laid out in a new White House report on overhauling the nation’s research portfolio. That report, released last week, emphasized giving more money to individual scientists over traditional academic institutions and investing more in artificial intelligence.
“The majority of STEM Ph.D. recipients today build careers beyond the university, yet American industry has had few opportunities to invest directly into how our doctoral researchers are trained,” Michael Kratsios, director of the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy, said in a Wednesday statement.
The share of doctoral students heading into private industry has ballooned over the past few decades. Among research doctorate recipients with employment plans that did not involve postdoctoral study, 40.4% said in 2024 that they were headed to industry or business, according to NSF data. That’s compared to 32.2% just a decade prior and 18.9% in 2004.
