An academy built for the PhD that nobody warns you about.

A PhD is one of the most isolating experiences in adult life. Supervisors are often distant, methodology training is uneven, peer cohorts thin out as people drift or drop, and life — work, family, finances — keeps competing for the hours the thesis needs. Most students who quit don’t quit because they’re not capable. They quit because the support around them silently failed.

Doctoral Compass was built to be that support. Not a replacement for the supervisor, but a structured second layer: a way to understand who you are as a candidate, what your specific risks look like, and what kind of help would actually move you forward — at the moment you need it, in the language you think in.

Today, the academy runs on two things you can use right now.

The free diagnostic — 73 questions, ~18 minutes — places you on five evidence-based dimensions of the doctoral experience and returns the archetype that best describes how you work, where you struggle, and what kind of support will move you forward.

And live free workshops — one in French and one in English, same topic — on the research-craft fundamentals PhD students in our fields actually need: systematic reviews and PRISMA, bibliometric analysis, research-question formulation, methodology choice, writing. Every session is recorded and stays available afterward.

Coming next: small-group cohort programs that walk a group of PhD candidates through a structured three-month arc together — live sessions, ateliers, written feedback on your own work, and a publishable paper as the final deliverable. The first cohort runs October 2026 – January 2027.

And in parallel, a Doctoral Companion AI — a research co-author calibrated for the EN/FR academic register and the non-experimental fields we serve, for literature work, methodology decisions, and writing.

Our paid cohort programs are how the academy sustains itself. Alongside them, we keep running open workshops — that is how we stay connected to the wider PhD community.

Take the free diagnostic. Read your archetype. Then browse what is coming up on the trainings page — that is how most people first engage with the academy. When cohort programs open enrollment, they will show up on the same page. No paywall, no premium tier on the test itself.