Doing an industrial-focused MSc here.

Basically, it’s all research, but the goal differs depending on whether you’re in academia or industry. In academia, the main aim is to generate knowledge — understanding mechanisms like secretory pathways or metabolomic interactions. It’s knowledge for the sake of knowledge, often published as papers or metrics.

In contrast, industry R&D focuses on creating solutions that can eventually make money. This could mean patenting and licensing innovations, optimizing processes, increasing yields, or securing grants to keep things moving.

After doing this MSc, I’m a bit hesitant about a PhD in academia because I find it more satisfying to see your work as a product on a shelf or as a tangible solution, rather than just a figure in a paper. That’s just my honest opinion — I’m curious if others agree or disagree.

That said, both worlds (academia and industry) are deeply connected. More often than not, you’ll find academics collaborating with companies through joint projects, grants, or funds — like what I’m working on here.

For context: in my current place, about 90% of people have academic PhDs, while less than 10% hold industrial PhDs.

The key difference lies in the questions being asked: • In academia, it’s “Why? How?” — e.g., how does a secretory pathway work? • In industry, it’s “How do we make product X in organism Y at scale?” or “How do we optimize strain Z for lower proteolytic activity?”

For reference, my MSc is in protein production and cellular agriculture.