The 4th PhDs’ day of the IRT Saint Exupéry took place on 9th July at the IAS campus in Toulouse. It attracted around 150 participants. About a quarter of those taking part were academic or industrial IRT members. This edition was enriched by the participation of the STAE foundation: after a brief introduction of the foundation and its goals by its director François Vernadat, some of its researchers presented their work with posters.

During the day, the PhD students or post-doctoral researchers presented their work with various communication ways:

• 8 technical presentations, where they have shown excellent scientific and technological level of their research results as well as their pedagogical skills;
• 19 posters with a dedicated session: 11 of them were presented by a 1 slide/1 minute flash introduction in front of the plenary assembly;
• 2 presentations in 180 seconds during which they have impressed by their skills in popularizing science.

Presentation in 180s video

Professional targets

This year, a round table was organized with 3 previous IRT Saint Exupéry PhD students who have now a permanent position in various companies:

• Nicolas Bello, who did his thesis in the High Performance Multifunctional Materials domain, with CEMES laboratory, and now works for Expleo Group as an engineer;
• Jonathan Bonnet, who did his thesis in the Embbeded Systems domain, with IRIT laboratory, and now works for Continental, as a data scientist;
• Pierre Roumanille, who stays working for IRT Saint Exupéry as a research engineer after his thesis in the High Performance Multifunctional Materials domain, with CIRIMAT laboratory.

They explained how their thesis at IRT Saint Exupéry has served their professional career, both how they were able to get their first job, to promote their PhD and how it is useful for their current missions.
They also told how they felt the transition between the thesis period and their entry in the professional world, and they replied to the questions from the audience.

Then, during the buffet lunch, special tables have been organised in which several experts from our industrial member companies shared their experience about R&D industrial careers with PhD students. The discussions were very much appreciated by both students and industrial experts.

Nowadays and after 5 years, 31 IRT Saint Exupéry’s PhDs of the firts two cohorts have successfully defended their thesis.
Their employment placement is excellent: 29 of them have found a job. The average time between their PhD defense and their first job is 1 month. 40% of them have their job contracts signed prior to the thesis defense, and 84% of them by 3 months after the thesis defense.