In a work practice of constant implementation of new manufacturing processes, competence development becomes crucial for practitioners within engineering fields such as production systems, additive manufacturing, industry 4.0 and machine learning. Industrial work is transforming and practitioners constantly need to learn both integrated in work practice and through flexible education.Given this, the purpose of this study is to analyse how participants engage in a unique initiative where courses targeting competence development for manufacturing industry have been co-constructed between one university and a network of companies. The longitudinal initiative (2013-ongoing) focus industry knowledge needs and e-learning design aiming for industrial work integrated learning. Over time a course format of five-week flexible e-learning courses of 2.5 ECTS, on master level, has evolved, and 30 courses within e.g. robotics, additive manufacturing and industrial digitalization, have been designed.

The uniqueness lies in the opportunities continuously taken for co-construction of course design throughout and this has brought about a combination of different practices for collaboration between academia and industry. Course participants perspectives are specifically explored through focus group studies and a questionnaire survey. Between 2014 and spring 2019 a total of 367 participants took part in focus group sessions at the end of each course instance. The questionnaire was distributed in spring 2019 to 638 individuals and the response rate was 12% (77 respondents) of which 56 had completed one or more courses. While the response rate of the questionnaire is low, results confirm the findings from the focus group studies and indicates new aspects for further study.

Outcomes from the focus groups show that practitioners feel that their own motives for learning are key for course participation. This is corroborated by the questionnaire results where 79% say they apply for the courses with ambition to study built on their own desire. The flexible e-learning format including virtual laboratories, web-conferencing and practical cases, is essential when combining full time work with competence development. This coupled with 89% of the questionnaire respondents finding the course content useful in relation to their own work, indicates the uniqueness of the initiative. Challenges persisting are the university's lack of capacity to swiftly respond to companies' skills needs and the nurture and development of the growing network that requires continued coordination. However, participants perspectives reveal the potential of how to empower co-construction of knowledge for industrial work integrated learning.