Doctorate Research Support Groups

Applications for Doctoral Groups are closed for 2024. We expect to open registration again in Summer 2025. In the meantime, check if there are other students in your school who might be interested.

Undertaking a PhD is exciting and stimulating. However, there are many well-documented challenges facing doctoral students. Staying in touch with other researchers throughout your degree is a way to help address challenges such as isolation, maintaining motivation, lack of feedback and stress. It’s beneficial to share experiences, talk about your research and get support from each other!

How Could a Research Support Group Help Me?

Discuss challenges and issues of doing a PhD. Family and friends are a great support but sometimes it’s good to talk with someone who is in the same boat. Plus, not everyone has willing family and friends!
Space to discuss each other’s research. Sometimes it’s nice to be to talk about it with someone other than your supervisor. Talking can help clarify your ideas and thinking.
Someone to talk to about the ups and downs
Update on research progress, share ideas, discuss research methods, resources, writing strategies, etc.
Stay connected. Especially for students who are studying part-time, distance, etc.
Make friends.

How Do We Match Researchers?

Before you fill in an application, think carefully about what you want from a support group - is it important that you're all in the same discipline? Do you want to be paired with other part-time researchers? It is recommended that students in a group share a similar stage of research. We will try to match you with two or three others who best meet your needs.

Once the group is matched, we'll check in after two weeks and, if the group isn't a good fit, we can try to match you with different researchers.

Guidelines for an online Doctorate Research Support Group

Visit our guide which sets out steps to form an online peer support group.

View the guidelines

Fill in an application form

We are not currently accepting applications for Doctoral Groups. We expect to open registration again in Summer 2025. In the meantime, check if there are other students in your school who might be interested.

Many thanks to the University of Sussex for allowing us to use their Online PhD peer support group resources as a basis for our groups. You can find out more about research groups here:

http://www.sussex.ac.uk/internal/doctoralschool/wellbeing/supportgroups
https://doctoralconnections.com/2020/06/29/why-you-need-the-support-of-other-doctoral-researchers/