Academic Resilience & Well-being Workshop

Alongside its methods training and scientific workshops, the RTG's qualification programme also makes space for something that is easy to overlook: well-being of the researchers.

On the 27th of May, Dr. Desiree Dickerson led a three-hour in-person workshop on academic resilience and well-being, open to PhD students and postdocs from both cohorts of the RTG. Dr. Dickerson, who specializes in helping researchers and academic institutions build healthier approaches to research, combines a background in neuroscience and clinical psychology with extensive international experience advising early-career academics.

The workshop centred on a deceptively simple but powerful idea: that many of the ways we respond to academic stress such as overthinking, pushing through, or avoiding can quietly maintain the very distress we are trying to escape. Using an evidence-based framework, participants were introduced to the cycle connecting thoughts, physical sensations, emotions, and behaviours, and explored how academic challenges can lock people into patterns that increase burnout risk over time. Crucially, the session was practical rather than theoretical. Participants worked on recognising their own recurring patterns and tried out concrete strategies for interrupting them through awareness, regulation, and small but meaningful shifts in behaviour.

The emphasis throughout was on sustainability, responding more flexibly to pressure and building habits that support long-term well-being alongside effective research.

The session involved a mix of large and small group discussion, independent reflection, and task-based activities, creating space for honest conversation in a safe setting.