[GianFabien]

There are two benefits in doing research at an academic institution:

1. You have access to paywalled papers. The majority of leading edge research is published in high subscription fee journals.

2. You gain a great deal of knowledge and build international network of contacts by attending conferences and collaborating with others. Sabbaticals are another form of leverage.

[rdtwo]

The paywall can be bypassed by just going to the library or enrollment in a single class. You could probably even buy/rent a students account and use that for remote login.

The latter though you really have to figure out if that’s worth doing unpaid labor for. Seems like you could leverage your existing industry position to network with professors better then you could as a phd student. You could reach out to professors of interest and offer to mentor their phd student in the ways of industry or help them find jobs and use that as leverage to get access to folks you are interested in