Review of the industrial doctoral concept in Lithuania

Problem

Lithuania in the EU context

The country’s vision for the future “Lithuania 2050” states that one of the country’s goals is to become an innovative, knowledge-based state that solves global challenges, emphasizing the importance of educational, scientific and business cooperation in this process. However, according to 2024 data, the efficiency of Lithuania’s innovation ecosystem does not reach the EU average and amounts to 84%. The European Commission (EC) emphasises that the country’s opportunities to create highly qualified jobs (e.g. for researchers with a doctoral degree) are limited, necessary investments in research and experimental development (hereinafter referred to as R&D). According to the share of Lithuanian business R&D expenditure in GDP, Lithuania ranks 20th among EU countries – Lithuanian industrial innovation is largely defined by the improvement of products and services, not the development of new ones.

As the main Lithuania’s weaknesses in the European Innovation Scoreboard The EC specifies the export of knowledge-intensive services and business investment in R&D (from 2017 to 2024 it decreased by 39.3 percentage points). In 2023, the Innovation Agency has prepared R&D and innovation (smart specialisation) monitoring. The report shows that the ratio of R&D expenditure to GDP, productivity and the share of workers in the high-tech manufacturing and knowledge-intensive services sectors in the employment structure lags behind the EU. This indicates the need to develop and promote high-tech sectors in Lithuania, increase productivity and promote R&D investments, and continue actions aimed at promoting R&D and other innovative activities in business.

Too few scientists in business

The technology sector, which has a high growth potential and export opportunities, plays a particularly important role in the Lithuanian economy. For example, sectors such as health technologies and biotechnologies, information and communication technologies and new production processes, materials and technologies are relatively more likely to invest in R&D than other sectors of the economy, which leads to a relatively higher level of productivity than in the whole of Lithuania. Also, a relatively higher number of jobs created for researchers can be seen in these sectors, which contributes to the growth of productivity and competitiveness of these companies and has a positive impact on the volume of exports (in 2022, the number of researchers from all employed in these sectors reached 3.8 %, while in the whole of Lithuania the number of researchers in business was 0.3 % out of all employed).

According to Eurostat data for 2023, in the context of other EU countries, the number of Lithuanian researchers is relatively low – it accounts for 1.05 % of the total workforce (EU average 1.75 %), which is 22nd place in the EU, while the number of researchers in the business sector remains one of the lowest in the EU – 0.4 % (EU average 1.05 %).

According to 2022 data, scientific research activities in Lithuania were carried out by 26 thousand employees, of which 9 thousand with a doctoral degree, of which 8.3 thousand worked in higher education and public authorities, while the remaining 725 researchers with doctoral degrees worked in the business sector. Among the EU countries, Lithuania is also lagging behind in the number of people with a doctoral degree, which is almost half the EU average.  Still, a large proportion of doctoral graduates do not work according to their qualifications, which reveals that the problem is not only the lack of PhDs in business, but also their level of employment researchers’ positions in general. One of the reasons is the lack of competences among doctoral students needed to work in business, as well as the limited receptivity of the business sector to knowledge in creating jobs for researchers. The low number of researchers with doctoral degrees is one of the main factors leading to weak R&D activity and low levels of innovation in the country. The lack of highly qualified researchers reduces the volume and quality of research, which slows down innovation and technological progress.

The need to develop an industrial doctorate

One of the ways to carry out R&D activities in Lithuania and promote cooperation between business and science, to increase the number of highly qualified researchers (with a doctoral degree) is industrial doctorate. The latter is focused on the cooperation of science and business in the conduct of scientific research, relevant and useful for a specific business or industry, in which the aim is to solve the business problem by introducing innovations.

In Lithuania, the industrial doctoral programme was funded by the Agency for Science, Innovation and Technology (hereinafter – MITA), but was unsuccessful due to low awareness and other problems in the mechanism of operation of the instrument. After the innovation reform, that took place in 2021-2023, the part of MITA responsible for science-business cooperation and other issues related to science policy was merged into the Research Council of Lithuania (hereinafter referred to as the LMT). After this reform, the industrial doctoral measure came under the umbrella of the competitive doctorate carried out by the LMT. Every year, 70 places are allocated to the facility, 20 of which are for doctoral studies with companies, institutions or organizations that carry out high-level R&D work in the doctoral field. However, these places are not fully filled. In addition, the number of companies using this tool in the field of technological sciences is decreasing. This may mean that the tool is not popular, does not meet existing needs or the target group, or perhaps potential users are not aware of it or face barriers to its use (e.g. overly complex competitive funding procedures, bureaucratic burdens, disagreements between business and science and higher education institutions on intellectual property or other issues).

Goal

The aim of the project is to assess the real need of Lithuanian business sectors and higher education institutions for industrial doctorates, and to propose possible solutions for strengthening cooperation.

Participants

2024/25

Lijana Dienaitė