Social science in action through graduate student internships on industrial innovation projects – A literature review

Abstract

The Cambridge Grand Challenges (CGC) initiative was set up in 2018 to foster collaboration between industry, government, and academia, and designed to help put the UK at the forefront of the industries of the future. As part of this, a program was set up to facilitate the process of Social Sciences doctoral students working with industry in short internships, to increase innovation and improve skills.

In this literature review paper we aim to review the basis of this approach and the academic and industrial context. A contribution is made towards uniting three distinct areas of literature, starting with the underpinnings of academic-industrial collaboration, followed by the social science perspective on academic-industrial knowledge exchange, then considering the links between internships and learning. The review concludes with proposed implications for knowledge transfer within this specific context. The paper highlights the research questions needed to further investigate the benefits, barriers and enablers, and the processes which facilitate the value delivering mechanisms of engagement, to demonstrate how such programs make a contribution towards improving UK industrial productivity.