Useful Resources for Academia
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Listing a resource here does not mean that we endorse it or its authors. These are materials we found interesting, shared for information; please use your own judgement before relying on them.
🔍 Inspirations
These researchers and academic websites served as valuable sources:
- Claes Bäckman – Tips for PhD students
🎓 PhD and Postdoc Careers
- Ten simple rules for choosing a PhD supervisor – PLOS Computational Biology, 2021. A concrete checklist: ask current and past students about meeting frequency, feedback and career outcomes, and align expectations on funding and publications.
- What makes PhD students happy? Good supervision – Nature editorial, 2025. Based on the Nature 2025 survey of more than 3,700 PhD students.
- Ten simple rules for launching an academic research career – PLOS Computational Biology, 2022. On the transition from postdoc to group leader: building a peer cohort, learning budgeting and learning to manage a group.
🛠 Research Group Culture
- A supportive research group culture
- Ten simple rules for developing a mentor-mentee expectations document – PLOS Computational Biology, 2017. A written agreement on hours, vacation, conflict resolution and authorship, to be revisited each year.
- How to build a nurturing collaborative research environment – Jill Walker Rettberg, University of Bergen, 2019. Weekly group meetings with round-table updates instead of slides, and presentations capped at about 15 minutes.
- Ten simple rules towards healthier research labs – PLOS Computational Biology, 2019. Includes not expecting work outside normal hours, weekends or holidays, and letting people set their own schedules and judging outcomes, not presence.
- Time Management for Researchers – Gabe Parmer, George Washington University, 2016. The lab agrees each semester which days are meeting days, so the other days stay free for long blocks of focused work.
