For the last two years, the PhD Network Board has followed the overarching topic of questioning the unquestionable, meaning that while we focused on failure in 2023/24, we flipped the coin the following year and turned from naming pressures and setbacks to asking what keeps us here: where and how PhD students find joy in academia. In doing so, we built on our previous work around mental health, questioning the sole focus on performance and the future of academia, which opened the door to a more positive outlook on PhD trajectories.
Accordingly, our 2025 PhD Day centered on “Finding Joy in Academia.” With contributors from the Joy in Academia podcast (Zakia Essanhaji and Daudi van Veen) and Positive Academia (Anne-Wil Harzing and Christa Sathish), we explored sources of meaning that persist despite the pressure to “perform well” in academia. Key topics in that regard were the freedom to pursue the questions that matter to us, the intellectual autonomy to choose how we explore them, and the communities we create to think together.
In line with that, community-building framed our conference presence. On the evening before the Annual Conference in Paris, we hosted an informal pizza meet-up that brought together PhD candidates from various countries and backgrounds. Many participants told us that having a few familiar faces from the start eased the days ahead, making a big event like the annual conference feel navigable.
Our panel and workshop in Paris deepened the conversation with three invited speakers: Ismail Oubad (University of Liège & University of Genoa), Carolin Schütze (Malmö University), and Swantje Falcke (Utrecht University). Three insights resonated strongly with the participants:
- Research is more than data extraction. The relationships made during fieldwork can be a source of joy.
- Time deserves to be taken seriously in the PhD trajectory. Looking beyond hitting or missing deadlines, it enables substantive learning and personal growth.
- Reframing hardship matters. Making a project one’s own is important, but so is recognising the people who make the journey worthwhile.
In group discussions, participants highlighted three additional points. First, we should not lose sight of the person behind the researcher: friends, family, and changing life roles shape our academic work. Second, international differences in PhD working conditions complicate comparisons and the imposter feelings they can trigger. Above all, community consistently emerged as the anchor that makes difficult moments less isolating and good moments more meaningful.
If there was a single thread this year, it was that joy is a product: of spaces through which we connect, of time taken seriously, and of relationships we build along the way. Building on these insights, the PhD Network Board will carry the positive route forward by foregrounding curiosity and community in the coming year. We will continue to create spaces for connection, invite conversations that take curiosity seriously as a driver of research, and share collective takeaways that help PhD students navigate diverse institutional contexts with confidence. In short, we aim to keep ensuring an environment where questioning and flourishing can happen together.