Welcome to Scholar Minds!

By Berlin we mean
research facilities in
Berlin and the greater
metropolitan area
including Potsdam

By early career researchers
(ECRs) we mean PhD students
and postdocs who have not
established their own
research group

By mental health we mean not only the absence of pathology, but the presence of general well-being, psychological functioning, and resilience

We at Scholar Minds strive to ensure the mental health of Berlin’s early career researchers by improving the status-quo on an individual and institutional level

By individual level we mean to provide resources for single ECRs by creating opportunities to connect with peers, psycho-education, awareness and destigmatization

By institutional level we mean guidance targeting an increase in awareness and initiate concrete actions (e.g., events, responsible person) in universities and graduate schools

The PhD journey

Pursuing a PhD is an adventure: Ideally, students get to follow their personal interests and gain profound knowledge of their field. However, this time can also be emotionally and physically demanding.

A study in US-American grad students reported high levels of stress and burn-out, fear of failure, long and unpredictable working hours, and financial strain (Boren, 2013). This is also true for PhD students in Germany. According to a recent survey of the Max Planck PhDnet, 53% of the students surveyed suffered from symptoms such as depression, burnout, chronic fatigue, sleeplessness and migraines. More than half of this group thought that these symptoms were directly related to their position as a PhD.

Join us!

If you are active in mental health or want to get involved, share your contact information with us in this Google doc, contact us via scholar-minds@charite.de or social media, or subscribe to our mailing list!

Our mission

We empower early career researchers (ECRs) by creating awareness about and destigmatizing mental health problems. We do this by …

Providing psychoeducation and self-help resources:

  • Free public events (e.g. presentations, talks, discussions, workshops)
  • Web-resources about how to find help in Berlin for ECRs
  • Digital resources about mental health
  • Podcast on mental health topics in academia

Building and expanding a peer community:

  • Promoting a healthy error culture and sharing honest experiences
  • Providing and maintaining a platform for peer support

Developing an alliance of supporters and stakeholders:

  • Evaluating the status-quo on mental health in academia
  • Engaging in discussion on how to improve the conditions of ECRs
  • Cooperating with PIs, graduate schools and universities (e.g. developing / sharing best practices)
  • Building a common-interest network with other initiatives

Find help in Berlin

There are multiple places where students can seek psychotherapy or social counseling. We have collected contacts in the Berlin area.

Resources

There is a lot of information out there that can help you to learn more about new strategies on how to cope with any mental health issue.

Survey

We have conducted a survey to investigate mental health-related questions with PhD students in Berlin. Check out our results here.

Our activities

We organize events to support PhD students and to de-stigmatize discussions of mental health issues in academia.

We were awarded with one of 100 startsocial consultation scholarships for social initiatives! From November 2021 to February 2022 we will have the honor to work together with two coaches who will accompany us on our way towards making our initiative more sustainable and professional. Thank you, startsocial, for giving us this opportunity!