Our coaches can help in a number of ways. They can help you think through open questions you have about your studies and future career, suggest tools and resources that would be a good fit for you, connect you with researchers to support your further, and offer you advice on things like finding a PhD supervisor and applying for funding.

After you’ve written your thesis or dissertation, we can also help you get your research noticed, including by publishing it on our site.

We generally work with students who will be writing a thesis or dissertation (at undergraduate, masters or PhD level) or submitting PhD applications in the next six months, however if you don’t quite fit this criteria we still encourage you to reach out.

We are accepting applications on a rolling basis. We typically reach out to accepted applicants within 1 to 2 weeks of their applications. If you have a deadline that means you need to hear back sooner, please make a note of this in your application.

If you want your research to do as much good as possible – either directly by contributing to solving a pressing problem or by building skills so you can have a bigger impact later – we encourage you to apply for coaching. 

We primarily coach students who are considering research careers, but if you plan to pursue a different career we still encourage you to apply.

We’ll assess your application on the basis of your interest in having a positive impact and our belief that we can offer you support. If for any reason we can’t offer you coaching, we will still offer you helpful resources.

A coaching session lasts 30 minutes. Your coach will start by understanding your goals and any open questions you have. They may then help you consider how you could increase the likely impact of your research, offer you further resources, connect you with other researchers or organisations, or advise you on topics such as applying for funding, finding a supervisor or choosing a research question that is a good fit for you. 

After the first coaching session you’re likely to have  lots of ideas and ways to get further support. However, many students appreciate meeting their coach for more sessions. Our coaches also stay in touch to provide ongoing guidance via email.

Yes – we still encourage you to apply. We recognise that your skills, qualifications and interests may mean that a different direction is a better fit for you, and the list of directions we feature on our site is not intended to be exhaustive.

However, we might not be able to help you as much as we could if you chose a research direction we recommend, as for these directions we have already found mentors, potential supervisors, research agendas and other useful resources to get you started.

We’re a nonprofit aiming to help students begin research careers that address pressing global problems. This means we particularly appreciate feedback about how we have helped you, to help inform our future applications for funding.

You can see all the services we offer on the homepage. As well as  individual coaching, we provide help with finding supervisors and PhD funding, recommendations of research directions that are particularly likely to have a big positive impact, a newsletter of curated opportunities for early career researchers, and advice for beginning a successful research career.