Industrial PhDs are becoming increasingly common, both as a way to increase collaboration and knowledge exchange between industry and academia and as a way to ensure PhD students learn skills needed in industry. However, there are challenges for the industrial PhD students, including communication across the contexts, differing expectations between the stakeholders, and a lack of support and inclusion. This study explores how the industrial PhD process is portrayed by the students themselves in writing, in the acknowledgements in their PhD theses. I draw on genre and communities of and practice and analyse the texts using qualitative content analysis and discourse analysis.

In summary, the acknowledgements shared many features and patterns with those of fully academic PhDs but often included a paragraph about industry after acknowledging academia and before acknowledging family and friends. Support from academia, especially the main supervisor, was portrayed as the most important for the PhD, providing both academic and moral support as well as a research community. The acknowledgements of industry showed more variation, and the extent to which the students described a community varied, the focus was generally on moral and practical support. The contribution of this essay lies in analysing how industrial PhD student portray their PhD, in a piece of text presumably read by all their stakeholders. Future research could expand the study to further add to the understanding of both the experiences of the students, e.g. what support they need and appreciate, and the power dynamics in industrial PhDs.