Stine Bjurlemyr, who is PhD candidate at NTNU and member of INRESCOS, is actively testing one of the research school’s core models: combining doctoral studies with part-time industry work.
As a PhD student and a part-time employee at Nammo, she is exploring how academic research and industrial practice can be integrated in a meaningful and sustainable way. In the second half of her PhD, she began searching for opportunities that aligned with her background in industrial mathematics. Soon, she found a position at Nammo that felt like the perfect fit. After a successful interview, she was offered the job. Her journey also includes the challenges and rewards of balancing professional development with motherhood, making her experience a valuable case for INRESCOS’s vision of applied, reflective research.
Creating a Sustainable Balance
Before accepting the offer at Nammo, Stine had open conversations with both her academic supervisor and her future employer. Together, they agreed on a 50-50 arrangement: she would work part-time at Nammo while continuing her PhD research. This setup, starting January 1st, 2025, allows her to dedicate 2.5 days a week to each role. Nammo’s willingness to invest in a long-term employee made them flexible in accommodating her academic commitments, and this helped overcome a common concern at the institution, that starting a job alongside a PhD might hinder the completion of the degree. Her supervisor, reassured by the company’s support, approved the plan. Stine now manages her own calendar, attends key meetings, and structures her time in a way that suits her needs, an arrangement that has been crucial to maintaining balance.
Industry Engagement and Applied Insight
This dual-role model is exactly the kind of integrated academic-industry collaboration that INRESCOS aims to promote, and it has opened up new perspectives for Stine. Even though her current job isn’t directly tied to her PhD research, focused on small and medium enterprises (SMEs), both areas involve manufacturing and share common principles. Stine reflects that if a PhD candidate starts working in a company from the very beginning of their doctoral journey, the connection between research and practice can become much stronger, as the PhD project could be built directly around a problem relevant to the company. This kind of alignment, she believes, makes the research easier to frame.
What she finds most valuable, however, isn’t necessarily the specific topic of her dissertation. Instead, it’s the mindset and skills she has developed through the PhD process: the ability to see the bigger picture, think systematically, search for and evaluate information, make connections, and create structured plans. Her academic training has become a way of thinking, one that continues to shape how she approaches challenges at work, even when the content isn’t directly related to her research. Stine’s experience is helping to demonstrate how such a model can work in practice.
Reflecting Through Practice
From the start of her PhD, Stine has visited several companies to gather insights and data. One of the most significant collaborations was with Norgesvinduet, a company involved in the project she was hired on. She visited them multiple times, initially to explore potential research directions and understand their needs, and later to collect specific data for her project. These visits helped her align her academic interests with real industrial challenges and provided a foundation for her research.
To deepen her understanding of the intersection between research and industry, she enrolled in the course Reflective Practice in Research Context (now Research in Industrial Context), a key component of INRESCOS’s training framework. The course supports industrial research and learning through structured reflection and experiential insight. Organized as a series of workshops, it helps participants identify their competencies and understand the knowledge and skills needed to achieve their research goals. The course runs concurrently with industrial work and encourages students to reflect on their experiences as researchers and engineers.
She also highlights the value of company visits such as the one to the Raufoss Industrial Park and the tour of Benteler. For Stine, who works with manufacturing, seeing real production lines and processes up close was one of the most exciting and insightful parts of the experience. She also thinks that it can be useful to arrange different kinds of networking events connected to these visits.
Industry Meets Academia
Stine believes that most PhD candidates who aspire to a career outside academia would be eager to collaborate with a company if given the chance. Working on real-world problems is both exciting and motivating, but for that to happen, there needs to be some form of access: a collaboration, data sharing, or even just a visit to spark inspiration. Networking and early contact with industry are key to making these connections possible. This is precisely what INRESCOS is working to facilitate, creating structures and opportunities that bring PhD candidates and industry closer together, so that research can be grounded in real needs and mutual benefit.
Motherhood and Motivation
Perhaps the most challenging part of Stine’s journey came early on, when she became a mother, about halfway through her doctoral period. Returning from maternity leave and balancing parenting with academic work was, in her words, even harder than managing a job and a PhD simultaneously. Despite the difficulties, Stine has found a rhythm that allows her to thrive in both roles. While support from her supervisor and employer has been important, she emphasizes that the most crucial support comes from her husband. He has taken the lead during periods of illness, the transition to kindergarten, and has made it possible for her to dedicate evenings and weekends to work when deadlines approach. Without his support, completing the PhD would have been significantly more difficult.
Her story is a testament to the importance of flexibility, collaboration, and strong personal support, both at home and in the workplace.