Scientific writing is a key feature of academic work often connected to publication pressure, fear of failure, and stress. In addition, there are many academics describing negative experiences of peer-review and feedback. To enhance a positive academic work environment, reduce writer’s block and stress related to sharing and receiving feedback on scientific texts, feedforward can be a useful option. When testing feedforward in a hybrid structured feedforward event with a multidisciplinary supervisor panel, it was evident that feedforward is still experienced as novel and empowering both for PhD students and senior researchers. This intensifies the need for feedforward as a tool to promote productive scientific writing and a positive work environment in academia.

INTRODUCTION

Throughout history industrial revolutions were synonymous with new technological advancements, from the steam engine to automation and robots (Xu, 2018). This focus reached its peak with Industry 4.0 with the integration of high-tech industrial strategies and technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, and the internet of things (IoT) (Barata & Kayser, 2023). However, in the new era of Industry 5.0, technological innovation is expected to align with human-centric, sustainable, and resilient forms of work(European Commission, 2021). This shift places greater emphasis on lifelong learning, upskilling, and reskilling as keys to successful transformation. At the same time, concerns about work-related health and stress outcomes remain central in industrial environments(Eurofound, 2021).

Over recent years, research on workplace learning and work-related health in industrial settings has expanded considerably, leading to multiple systematic reviews across diverse subtopics. These reviews have investigated various learning interventions (e.g., technical training, digital learning, stress-targeted programs), different health and well-beingoutcomes (e.g., occupational stress, burnout, job satisfaction), and varied industrial contexts (e.g., manufacturing, automotive, smart factories). However, the evidence across these reviews has not been synthesized at a higher level, leaving uncertainty about the overall relationship between workplace learning and employees’ health, the consistency of findings across different contexts and methodologies, and the quality of the evidence (Lagrosen & Lagrosen, 2018).

An umbrella review—a systematic synthesis of multiple systematic reviews and meta-analyses—is needed to provide a comprehensive overview of this broad field (Fernandez, 2025; Abdellatif, 2025). By combining evidence from these reviews, this umbrella review will clarify relationships among workplace learning interventions and work-related health outcomes In industrial settings by identifying patterns of consistency and discrepancy in findings. It will also evaluate the methodological quality of available reviews, map the evidence landscape across different learning interventions and health outcomes, and highlight critical knowledge gaps that need further investigation. This overarching perspective is essential for understanding how different types of workplace learning impact work-related health across industrial settings and for informing evidence-based policy and practice in the Industry 5.0 era.

Primary systematic reviews focus on specific interventions or outcomes, while this umbrella review synthesizes findings from multiple reviews to address broader questions:

• What is known about workplace learning and work-related health in industrial settings? 

• Where do reviews converge or diverge? 

• What gaps remain in the review evidence? 

• What is the quality and certainty of the synthesized evidence? 

The answers will guide future research practices, organizational strategies, learning initiatives, and policies supporting human-centric industrial transformation.

Aim:

This umbrella review synthesizes existing systematic reviews and meta-analyses on workplace learning practices and work-related health outcomes in industrial settings, with a focus on Industry 5.0. Specifically, we aim to (1) map existing review evidence on learning interventions and health outcomes; (2) identify consistent and divergent findings across reviews; (3) assess methodological quality and evidence certainty; and (4) highlight evidence gaps for future reviews or research. To our knowledge, no umbrella review of this scope has been published.

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Business schools face growing pressure to develop socially responsible and effective leaders, particularly among mid-career professionals. This study explores a reversed work-integrated learning (WIL) model, with a starting point in participants’ real-world leadership practices, integrating theory and continuous structured reflection. This contrasts with traditional WIL models that start with academic theory and rely on formal partnerships between academia and industry for work placements.

Drawing on five years of qualitative data from 99 participants in a master's level leadership program, the study explores how this contract-free, practice-first approach supports leadership development by leveraging participants' ongoing professional experience. The pedagogical design emphasizes contextualized, lifelong learning through continuous individual and peer reflection.

Reflexive thematic analysis reveals that the reversed WIL model effectively addresses leadership development gaps, enhances workplace impact, and offers a strong return on investment for individual participants and organizations. The study contributes a novel framework for leadership development education tailored to experienced professionals based on five key design principles: learner adaptation, contextualization, self-efficacy building, flexible structure, and peer-based learning.

Anna-Karin Olsson läser Sofia Kjellströms nya bok om ledarskapsutveckling i teori och praktik. Boken presenterar ett forskningsbaserat perspektiv på hur ledarskap kan utvecklas både på individ- och gruppnivå, och utmanar samtidigt traditionella föreställningar om ledarskap som ett individuellt hjälteideal.

Most PhD candidates will not end up in academia and would need an alternative skill set. Higher education is under scrutiny for not devel-oping the graduate attributes needed by the world of work. Work-integrated learning (WIL) is suggested to provide ways to identify and develop the skills required. Due to the individualised nature of career development, a one-fits-all approach will not solve the challenge.

Career crafting provides a way, to consider career opportunities proactively. By integrating the dimensions of task, relational and cognitive career crafting in the design of work-integrated learning activities, PhD students can be supported to take responsibility for their career development. An explorative pilot study was undertaken with 32 PhD students to explore the application of career crafting in their reflection on their careers and how WIL can promote career crafting behaviour. The results indicate a need for an increased focus on career crafting as there is limited cognitive career crafting and reflection on identifying relevant WIL activities. A more systemic intervention should be adopted where all stakeholders are actively involved. Results confirm a need for further exploration of career crafting using WIL as part of the PhD journey.

This paper addresses how employees’ perceptions of organizational and technological aspects of digital transformation in manufacturing contexts contribute to understanding co-workership. To answer this, the research design is rooted in an engaged scholarship approach and work-integrated learning in close collaboration with a case company to understand organisational and digital transformations over time.

The study consisted of five focus groups with a total of 25 participants and applied the framework of the co-workership wheel to contribute to the understanding of inclusion of co-workers in digital transformation processes. The results show the need for learning and reflection as an additional conceptual pair and thus propose an extended co-workership wheel for the manufacturing context.

Swedish PhD Education is in general heavily structured. PhD students write their dissertation with supervision guidance, take compulsory and elective courses and often have some kind of departmental duties such as teaching. However, there are differences depending on PhD programs, disciplines and faculties. Moreover, PhD students get highly skilled during their PhD education, getting prepared to do research and, often, also to teach. This is also, by nature, trained in real-life situations, since their education at the same time is their work. But does this mean that they come fully prepared for the working life that awaits them?

In this paper, we focus on how to prepare for and learn how to navigate, on the one hand in a diversified working situation in a concrete everyday sense, and on the other hand, a global academic landscape dominated by academic capitalism. PhD programs cannot remain static. That will risk leaving the PhD graduate overwhelmed when transitioning from PhD student to early career researcher. This transition is a crucial moment for making a change for PhDs' future careers.

The culture around and within PhD education needs to be changed, which demands courage, as the traditional structures are strongly established. Like all cultures, academic culture is also in a state of change, but it changes slowly. To improve the situation, we propose active engagement with cultural structures in academia and PhD education. This approach aims at challenging a slow organic adjustment that may take a long time and risk leaving many young researchers behind. 

In this paper, we exemplify with several measures, defined as work-integrated learning (WIL) within the PhD education, implemented at our university.  In this instance, by WIL we mean an explicit ambition and practical attempt to create a strong and reciprocal relation between working life and learning, bringing in real academic working life components (beyond those already present) as integrated parts of the PhD education. Examples range from courses focusing on co-creative project application work with external partners, practicing academic leadership by leading research assistants, to taking part in real-life research interdisciplinary projects outside the dissertation work. Additionally, strategic career planning, abilities to translate skills to diverse contexts, feedforward practices to promote joy at work, and pedagogical layers of learning when being both a student and a teacher are addressed. Moreover, the research environment has arranged special events for PhD students to network and collaborate with senior researchers through authentic interdisciplinary collaborative academic writing and research beyond the dissertation project.

Recognizing the need for cultural change in PhD education requires the courage to face a shifting reality where the future workplace of PhD graduates is already evolving and will continue to do so. Thus, universities, research schools and supervisors need to be courageous and open to explore innovative approaches to WIL in PhD education. 

The study contributes to how transdisciplinary research collaboration can be designed to address the complexity of the human-technology nexus in the context of Industry 5.0 and to identify incentives from the manufacturing industry to engage in transdisciplinary research efforts. Engaged scholarship and work-integrated learning approaches are applied to integrate diverse research disciplines and active stakeholder engagement to address complex societal challenges. The methodology of this research is a qualitative case study, including workshops and focus groups with a project consortium of eight companies, with industry experts and university researchers. Findings contribute to transdisciplinary research collaboration viewed as an iterative continuous process including three phases for the process of reaching full potential of transcending disciplines and organizations. Contribution shows that industry highlights the need to address human challenges in smart technology adoption, motivating engagement in transdisciplinary research. Advancing smart manufacturing requires embracing creativity and innovation in the human-technology nexus. Further, transdisciplinary research collaboration needs to be based on trust, relationships, sharing, courage, mutual understanding and respect for each other's disciplines and expertise. The collaborative design accentuates the significance of transdisciplinary research in university-industry collaboration when moving forward with human-centric and smart manufacturing in line with the evolving Industry 5.0 paradigm