…the internship demonstrated how close researchers are to industry, even though industries may seem too far from us, especially in humanities and social sciences.

Short Bio

Ícaro de Oliveira Rosa is a PhD candidate in the School of Education at Macquarie University (MQ), specialising in evidence-based public policies in special education. Additionally, he serves as a Sessional Teaching Academic at MQ, contributing to the Bachelor of Arts program. In 2023, he successfully completed an internship at MTPConnect, an organisation established by the Australian government to foster connections between research and industry in the medical sector.

Tell us about your PhD research topic in 100 words or less.

My work focuses on evaluating students’ experiences at Australian universities, with a particular emphasis on using a mixed-methods approach to assess the experiences of both bachelor’s and postgraduate students participating in the Brazilian government's Science Without Borders exchange program. Diverging from prior studies in this domain, my research endeavours to comprehend how the environment and interactions among students and various elements – such as people, objects and symbols – shape their experiences.

What motivated you to do a graduate research internship with MTPConnect?

In July 2023, the Graduate Research Academy (GRA) at MQ shared an opportunity to apply for the iPREP Biodesign Program. I thought that applying would be a good idea because it would give me some practical experience, especially in applying the knowledge I was developing in my PhD. I became more motivated to do an internship when I discovered that MTPConnect is part of the Australian Industry Growth Centre, an Australian governmental initiative that aims to drive innovation, productivity and competitiveness in six different sectors of the economy. Because I am interested in research and its connection with industry, I thought that it would be an amazing opportunity to see first-hand how the development of these type of policies is done in practice.

Importantly, another great motivation was when I found out that I could apply for a leave of absence, which grants HDR candidates up to six months away from their studies to pursue an internship. This allowed for the thesis submission date to be advanced by up to six months, thereby avoiding any potential difficulties.

Please tell us a bit about your internship project, and what you produced during the internship (ie, reports, presentations, etc.)

Together with three other PhD candidates, we were assigned three main projects to work on during our three-month placement: 1) evaluating the impacts of initiatives promoted by MTPConnect’s partner organisations, 2) mapping the sector’s ecosystem in Western Australia (WA) and 3) setting up a group to discuss the sector’s barriers and possibilities in WA.

Since these three projects were quite demanding, we distributed the workload between the interns, and I focused more on project number 3, though the whole team contributed to each other’s work. In project 3, I collaborated extensively with Laura Gomez, a PhD candidate from the School of Natural Sciences at MQ. The project involved the design and development of a collaborative working group for the health care and life sciences sector in WA. The idea of this working group, or what we call a sub-constellation, is to work collaboratively with individuals and organisations to solve problems and create more opportunities for the sector in WA.

To implement this project, we had to interview multiple stakeholders to better understand the hurdles and barriers they were facing. We first spent one or two weeks reading and understanding the sector. We then developed an open-ended questionnaire for the interviews. In total, 23 stakeholders were invited to participate in the interviews, and 12 accepted. They came from different organisations including 4 start-ups, 3 public health services, 3 government, 1 education and 1 research centres. This diversity was relevant because it could give us multiple perspectives about the sector. We conducted the interviews online, and the participants demonstrated great interest in sharing their viewpoints about the sector in WA.

After collecting the interviews, I transcribed them and started the analysis of the material. Due to the strict timeframe of the placement, the solution for the analysis was the use of AI, since we could streamline the process without losing data reliability. The results demonstrated that the key barriers of the sector are funding, commercialisation and intellectual property ownership, government support, technology, culture and human capital.
The outcome for this project involved a final presentation to the leaders of the organisation along with a presentation to the iPREP team and a report about our understanding of WA.

Were there any challenges you faced during your internship, and how did you approach them?

The main challenge I faced was within my head. I have a background in international relations and education, and MTPConnect belongs to the health care and life sciences sector. Even though I was excited about learning more about this sector, I was afraid my skills and knowledge would not be suited for the role. So, I studied hard in the first weeks to try to understand the industry as much as possible. As the projects progressed, I realised that my skills could fit well in that role. To be honest, I was quite relieved and surprised by that.

Another challenge was working with new tools, but this is normal in any new setting. I am glad that everyone in the team helped along the way!

How has the internship had an impact on you as a researcher? Has it changed your approach to any aspects of your PhD research?

This is an interesting topic, and I wrote an article on TECHE reflecting on this issue. According to the Commonwealth Scholarships Guidelines (2017), the idea of a research internship is to engage higher degree candidates in research and development (R&D) aligned with their academic pursuits. As a researcher, I feel that the internship demonstrated that the transferable skills are, indeed, transferable. From communication to critical thinking, problem-solving, communication, collaboration, time and data management, research design and many others, the internship demonstrated how close researchers are to industry, even though industries may seem too far from us, especially in humanities and social sciences.

I now understand an internship as a continuation of one’s studies, rather than a break from it. You can observe the experience as an opportunity to learn just as much as in your PhD, and it can influence your research. For instance, in my case, it changed my perception of the qualitative phase of my PhD. The way I designed the questions for my PhD can be improved because I developed this skill during the internship. This is a simple example of how close industry and academia can be!

Is there anything else you’d like to share about your internship experience?

An important area for me was the relationship between my teaching and the internship experience. When I started the placement, I was tutoring the unit Humanities and the World (ARTS1000) at MQ. This unit is an interdisciplinary introduction to the main methods in the social sciences and humanities that emphasises three main transferable skills: reflective thinking, influencing, and social and self-responsibility.

As I mention in the article, during the tutorials, I emphasised the importance of the development of these transferable skills and used the placement as an example to demonstrate how it works in practice. For instance, the design of the interview questionnaire demanded influencing skills, especially within a team with different skill sets. In terms of reflective thinking, I discussed how the internship influenced my thinking about continuing in academia or moving to the public or private sector. In retrospect, the internship experience was not only important to develop my own skills, but also to show my students that a similar experience could impact their lives as well.

A last important point is to recognise the support of my supervisors, Drs Agnes Bosanquet, Anne Forbes and Garry Falloon. They supported my idea of applying for this experience. Having supervisors who back you up is vital to the success of this experience.

Ícaro's achievements

• de Oliveira Rosa, Í. (2024, April, 2) Connecting the dots: how an internship during my PhD transformed my teaching and research. TECHE.
• Faculty of Arts Learning Innovation Award, Faculty of Arts, 2023.