PhD education is undergoing a significant transformation to meet the needs of society, particularly in industry. There is a growing demand for researchers who can apply their expertise within and beyond academia. Industrial PhD education is emerging as a key solution to this demand with PhD students employed by a company while completing their PhD studies. Industrial PhD education is based on work-integrated learning i.e., the relationship between working life and learning. The industrial PhD student, with one foot in work-life and one in academia, is in a unique position to contribute to both academic research and industry needs. Identified benefits for industrial PhD students’ learning include proximity and access to data, projects and networks, contextual understanding, and tacit knowledge. This not only enhances PhD students’ learning but also provides insights that benefit both academia and industry.

However, there are also challenges associated with industrial PhD education such as balancing the dual roles of being a PhD student and an employee. Industrial PhD students often face conflicting demands from their academic supervisors and their employers, which can lead to a sense of divided identity and a lack of belonging in both contexts. Thus, the success of industrial PhD education hinges on addressing the following critical issues:

Understanding and Expectations: It is crucial to improve the understanding and expectations between academia and industry. Both sides must engage in continuous dialogue and close interaction to build long-term relationships based on trust and mutual knowledge creation. This involves structuring the collaboration through clear actions, practices, and routines that consider the dual expectations placed on industrial PhD students.

Formal Agreements: Detailed formal agreements are necessary to ensure that all partners avoid conflicts of interest and protect the industrial PhD students’ work conditions. Financial agreements involving multiple partners can complicate collaboration.

Inclusion and Access: Ethical dilemmas regarding inclusion and access for industrial PhD students need careful consideration. Industrial PhD students often navigate different organizational cultures, face issues of belonging and visibility, and manage dual responsibilities while dealing with confidential data. Guidance and support from both academic and industry mentors are required to balance these challenges.

Integration of Research and Practice: For industrial PhD education to be effective, the research must be well-integrated with industry practice. The scope of the PhD thesis should be firmly anchored in both industry and academia. Furthermore, industry partners need to consider the long-term career prospects of the industrial PhD students, while academia can benefit from a continuing engagement in education and research after PhD graduation.

To conclude, industrial PhD education based on work-integrated learning, academic rigor and industry experience, offers a model for the future, promoting a new generation of researchers ready to tackle contemporary societal challenges. When these critical issues are addressed, this is the ultimate way to build knowledge!

Demographic changes with an elderly population and more patients living longer with chronic illnesses will result in an increased need for care (OECD/EuropeanUnion 2022, Maresova et al. 2019). Remote patient monitoring (RPM), which allows patients to monitor their health and medical conditions from locations outside of healthcare, such as at home, is one example of a new digital service intended to simplify for patients, nurses, and other health professionals. RPM can broadly be defined as the use of digital technology (apps, sensors, wearables) that enables people to monitor their health and well-being automatically,systematically, and over time – for example, aspects like diet, exercise, sleep, mood,blood pressure and heart rate (e.g., Feng et al. 2021, Azevedo, Rodrigues & Londral2021).

RPM aims at enhancing patients' quality of life through self-care and active participation while also optimizing healthcare resource utilization by reducing in-person visits and hospital admissions. However, there is a lack of evidence of patient benefit and risks (Vallo Hult et al. 2023), and more research is needed regarding how RPM affects clinical practice and how healthcare professionals perceive its impact on their work (Černá 2019;, Vallo Hult et al. 2019; Islind et al.2022).

In this study, we focus on how nurses' work is changed by RPM. In their professional development, it is mandated that nurses should develop the ability to use digital technology in the care of patients, like remote care (Asthma, Allergy,and COPD Nurses Association, 2015). Previous research has identified and outlined challenges and essential knowledge for the digitalization of healthcare, highlighting the need for more research on learning, collaboration and competence development (Svensson 2019;, Vallo Hult et al. 2020; Svensson & Vallo Hult 2022), especially regarding nurses continuous professional development, and what role collegial and collaborative learning and knowledge sharing have for this learning (Khademi et al. 2021, Mlambo, Silén & McGrath 2021).

The aim of this paper is to investigate barriers and opportunities of RPM in relation to nurses’ working, collaborating and learning. The study is guided by the following research question: What are the implications of RPM on nurses’ work, collaboration and learning?

Entrepreneurship and innovation are the main local, regional, national, and international development drivers. However, there are gender differences as a majority of entrepreneurs all over the world are men. This gap has generated research interest and different perspectives have been studied and analyzed.

Contemporary digitalization of society affects all sectors and industries generating possibilities and challenges. Small businesses generally have limited financial resources and time, especially women entrepreneurs face the challenges of digitalization. How do women entrepreneurs find opportunities for workplace learning related to digitalization?

Our research contributes new insights regarding women entrepreneurs’ behavior and ways to acquire digital skills to keep up the pace in digitalization i.e. how women entrepreneurs learn new digital skills to develop their small businesses. The results have generated great global research interest.

We met eleven experienced middle-aged women entrepreneurs several times for two years and observed their digital presence. They shared their stories and perspectives on facing digitalization in mature small businesses. The women entrepreneurs were active in three smaller cities in Western Sweden and had been running their businesses for ten to 27 years.

What did the study reveal?

Continuous learning – to remain competitive, the women entrepreneurs constantly had to learn new digital skills. Learning by doing, informal learning from networks and other entrepreneurs, and step-by-step self-development were practiced combined with strategical recruiting of young digitally skilled employees (digital natives) to learn at the workplace emphasizing a reversed master and apprentice relationship.

Digital advantages and disadvantages – while digitalization offers advantages such as expanded reach through social media it also brings challenges. Limited resources and the pressure to prioritize learning can lead to digital stress or burnout. The constant need for social media presence, scanning, and the maintenance of all various digital channels and platforms is demanding. Women entrepreneurs strongly emphasized the continuous challenge of work-life balance. Further, dealing with negative social media comments impacts emotions, even though gender stereotyping is not a common issue online.

Balancing digital and offline processes – women entrepreneurs engage in step-by-step digitalization along with the development of small businesses but sometimes choose to revert to offline practices (digital decline). Women entrepreneurs have been reconsidering the potential and disadvantages of digitalization in learning new work practices.

To conclude, analyzing women entrepreneurs’ encounters with the ongoing digitalization displays work in transition with continuously changed learning conditions requiring adaptive behavior, learning new skills, knowledge, judgments, and strategic recruitment of digitally skilled employees. Digitalization disrupts traditional entrepreneurial work processes and necessitates adaptive behaviors related to the digitalization of small businesses.

Following the digitalization era, women entrepreneurs must act as digital entrepreneurs continuously finding new business opportunities to generate local, regional, national, and international growth. Women entrepreneurs are imperative in driving local, regional, national and international growth by embracing innovative ways of doing business.  Further research on small businesses and women entrepreneurs can deepen our understanding of work-integrated learning in action from an entrepreneurial perspective.

Policymakers play a crucial role in supporting small businesses and entrepreneurs with access to finance, education and training, networking, addressing gender gaps, and encouraging research to understand the unique challenges faced by women entrepreneurs. As demonstrated by these women entrepreneurs, work-integrated learning in action reveals the dynamic interplay between learning and working, highlighting the importance of lifelong learning and adaptability in thriving within the digital landscape.

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to explore the benefits and barriers for learning in industrial PhD education through the perspectives of industrial PhD students. A work-integrated learning (WIL) approach is applied to highlight key issues that university and industry need to consider promoting mutual learning.

Design/methodology/approach – The empirical context is a Swedish university profiling WIL offering PhD programs in three disciplines for industrial PhD students from both the private and public sectors. Data was gathered using qualitative methods; 19 semistructured interviews with industrial PhD students.

Findings – Findings show that industrial PhD students are developing practical and transferable skills, hence, contributing to research of interest for academia and work–life. Identified benefits for learning include proximity and access to data, project and networks and contextual understanding and tacit knowledge. Barriers for learning are the perceived limited understanding of employers, the dilemma of balancing and switching between different roles, lack of belonging and identity, deficient collaboration agreements and ethical dilemmas.

Research limitations/implications – Contributes insights into an industrial PhD education transforming along with societal needs promoting a future workforce of researchers with skills, new work practices and learning capabilities applicable in the work–life of contemporary society.

Originality/value – This study contributes to the emerging field of studies of alternative doctoral educations by identifying benefits and barriers for learning and providing recommendations for how university and industry may promote learning in a resilient industrial PhD education collaboration.

Doctoral education is transforming, along with societal changes, as it is no longer solely aimed at academic careers. A new landscape with various models for doctoral education is emerging with an increased alignment with industry. This study aims to deepen research by critically exploring industrial PhD education collaboration in Sweden. The perspectives of industrial PhD students, academia, and industry are integrated with work-integrated learning as a theoretical lens to identify benefits, challenges, and prerequisites for how to structure and manage such a collaboration. Qualitative methods are applied including a total of 38 respondents. Industrial PhD students embody PhD education, research, and university-industry collaboration, generating learning and understanding across sectors and industries. The current knowledge of PhD education is advanced by integrating multiple perspectives, to reveal prerequisites that are vital for how to structure and manage industrial PhD education collaboration, to promote work-integrated learning towards a way to build knowledge.

The increasing use of automated systems for decision-making and decision support in public administration is forming new practices and challenging public values since public services must be impartially accessible and designed for everyone. New robotistic process automation (RPA) systems are generally designed based on back-office structures. This requires clients to submit relevant data correctly in order for these services to function. However, not all potential or intended users of these services have the competence and the capacity to submit accurate data in the correct way. Front-line case workers at public agencies play critical roles in supporting those who have problems using the services due to the a forementioned accessibility requirements and there by work in bridging digital divides. This article analyses strategies used by front-line case workers to complement RPA and improve the inclusion of all clients in the services. It builds on qualitative case studies at two Swedish authorities, including in-depth interviews and observations. The study shows that the discretion of the front-line case workers is limited by the RPA systems, and they also have limited discretion to support clients in their use of the digital services. Instead, they develop strategies in line with more service- and socially-oriented values; duty-oriented values are integrated into the RPA. The analysis shows the importance of forming new support structures for inclusion when public services are automated to maintain the core public values of inclusion and democratic legitimacy.