The art of supervisor wrangling

The art of supervisor wrangling

A colleague of mine was sitting beside a senior academic at a conference. A young researcher was giving a presentation on the preliminary results from their doctoral research, and the senior academic was really impressed. The topic coincided perfectly with his research interests. Meeting the young researcher over coffee, the senior academic paid his compliments, and enquired who was the young researcher’s PhD supervisor. “You are”, they replied... 

Read on for examples of entry-level, and Hall of Fame levels of supervisor wrangling...

Photo: Jerry Lara, San Antonio Express-News

Research article: mental health problems in PhD students

Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students by Katia Levecque and colleagues was recently (2017) published in Research Policy.
Using a web-based questionnaire and a sample of several thousand PhD students in Belgium, their work indicated that one in two PhD students experienced psychological distress, and that one in three was at risk of a common psychiatric disorder (especially depression).


I was already aware of other research from Australia (ABS 2007), indicating that one in five people could expect to experience a mental health problem (of varying severity) in a 12-month period. This study, however, focuses in more detail on PhD students.


They authors ask: what can research policymakers do?, and suggest the following:
- raise awareness
- assess policies for the extent to which research funding and employment conditions alleviate or exacerbate risks to mental health
- improve protections for those with mental health problems.


Levecque et al. 2017. Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students. Research Policy 46: 868-879. 


Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2007). National Survey of Mental Health and Well-being: Summary of results. Catalogue No. 4326.0. Canberra, ACT: Australian Bureau of Statistics.