RESILIENCE TRAINING FOR RESEARCHERS
Measured, not asserted: the February 2026 cohort
Researchers from institutions including Max Planck institutes and CERN, 35 matched datasets, a battery of validated instruments in week 1 and week 8 of the Resilience Training.
69% → 34%
of researchers in the at-risk screening range for anxiety, arrival to week 8. Twelve moved out; not one moved in.
34% → 6%
at-risk screening range for low mood over the same eight weeks.
3.29 → 3.85
Personal Resilience Indicator on a five-point scale; all six domains moved.
20.7 → 15.1
perceived stress: from far above the general adult norm to beside it.
6.2 → 7.4
increase in self-rated workday performance, with same hours worked
5.8 h → 2.9 h
weekly sleep debt, halved; cohort sleep efficiency crossed the 85% threshold of a well-functioning night.
Two of twelve resilience drivers did not move in eight weeks, and we publish that too: capacities that build over years declined to pretend otherwise, and an instrument that applauds everything is not measuring. Person by person, resilience gains tracked independently measured stress reduction at −0.80, judged by instruments that have never heard of us. And it lasted: two months on, 11 of the 25 techniques were still in active use by at least 80% of participants. Read the full results →
Over nine weeks, the average participant’s Personal Resilience Indicator score climbs from 24% to 64% percent rank. A 9-week evidence-based training for researchers who want to meet the demands of a research career without sacrificing their mental wellbeing.
Our Participants' Academic Homes
Next class starts
21 September 2026
2027 dates
Spring class: 8 February to 9 April 2027
Autumn class: 27 September to 26 November 2027.
Is your institution sending you? Many participants join through their university or research institute. If yours has linked you here, everything you need to make your decision is on this page, and the FAQ at the bottom answers the practical questions. If your institution does not yet offer this training, Reserve places for your researchers or ask your training coordinator about it.
I’m proud of my new routines, which help me stay on track. It's also satisfying to see myself return to them after setbacks.
Participant, February 2026 class, end-of-training survey
A career in academia has always been demanding. Researchers taste failure more often than success. Add the long hours, the publish-or-perish imperative, the unfavourable odds of securing tenure, and the bullying that is still commonplace in parts of academia, and the result is predictable: researchers are more prone to mental health difficulties than most other professional groups. In the Wellcome Trust’s survey of research culture, roughly half of researchers reported having sought, or actively seeking, professional help for their mental health. Other large surveys echo the finding.
Publications do not guarantee tenure. A successful career does not guarantee happiness. Even deeply rewarding work can leave you feeling trapped inside your own life.
Maybe you find yourself repeatedly burning the midnight oil in the lab. Maybe an exhaustion has set in that weekends and holidays no longer alleviate. Maybe you feel torn between the contribution you want to make to your field and the time you want to spend with the people you love. Maybe you want something bigger for your life, but cannot see how your day-to-day experience takes you any closer to it.
IS THIS HOW IT IS SUPPOSED TO BE?
We get it. We have been there. After many years of helping people improve their mental wellbeing, we know there is a different way of working and being.
Do you find yourself
You can do it too! You don’t have to accept that this is what life in academia is like
Imagine, if ...
Yes, you can do it!
Will it be an overnight transformation? No, of course not. Changing your behavioural patterns and routines takes more than a single workshop. It's a journey that will take effort and dedication. Resilience is not an innate trait. It's a new skillset that you can develop and this takes time. The good news is that you don't have to figure it out all by yourself. For 9 weeks we will guide and mentor you through this process.
Three reasons to make resilience a priority now
1. IMPROVE WELLBEING
Especially at the start of a research career, it is tempting to put yourself last to get the job done. But mental wellbeing is not a reward for finishing; it is what you finish on. Athletes are coached on recovery as part of the training; researchers are mostly left to figure it out alone. The same research project can be a source of purpose and energy or a source of stress, anxiety and exhaustion. Which one it becomes is not fixed, and it is not decided by your supervisor, your funding or your field. It follows from choices, and the choices are yours.
2. REDUCE STRESS AND FRUSTRATION
Most of us consistently overestimate the long-term impact of big events, positive and negative. It is the day-to-day experience that shapes wellbeing. "In research, we are often taught by our supervisors to chase the big thing. Unfortunately, the big thing does not come around that often. On the contrary, the negative results are more frequent. This creates so much frustration." shared one of our participants after the training. "Resilience is important to understand that failure is how research projects progress for most researchers. Failed experiments do not mean that you are not good enough. It only means that you are a researcher experiencing the reality of research." Learning to celebrate and appreciate the seemingly small daily things and putting setbacks into perspective allows us to find meaning and joy in our lives.
3. BUILD BETTER RELATIONSHIPS
Long hours under pressure, surrounded by colleagues who are also under pressure, is the standard condition of lab life. When conflict arises, researchers tend to argue the facts as they perceive them and ignore the human element entirely. You cannot change your colleagues’ behaviour. You can change how much of it you absorb, and how you respond. Managing conflict well is one of the most practical resilience skills there is.
WHAT PAST PARTICIPANTS SAY ABOUT THE TRAINING
Are you a training or programme coordinator interested in offering this training to researchers at your university or research institution?
Book a 20-minute call with one of our expert trainers to explore how our tailored training solutions can drive meaningful improvements in productivity and wellbeing.
Looking for a shorter format first, or a different pattern to work on?
SUCCESS STORIES FROM OUR PARTICIPANTS
I'm proud that I prioritized my mental and physical health in the last 9 weeks and that I put in the work to fully attend this seminar, because I believe that change for the better is possible.
DANIEL
Most important for me is the fact that I enjoy my work a lot more than I did 9 weeks ago. This is not only helpful for my productivity, but also increases my overall happiness.
SIMON
The changes I am most proud of is the active way I have been identifying and working through deeply rooted ways of thinking. Changing the way I think about myself has been the most rewarding.
ELAINE
I started meditating around week 4 and I've been doing morning meditations every day for over a month now - which is something that I've been wanting to do for a long time, but never actually managed to keep up!
HANNA
WHAT IS Resilience Training?
Advances in neuroscience are changing our understanding of the brain: how it adapts in response to past and present experience, how we respond to stress, and how we recover from setbacks. The Resilience Training for Researchers is a structured 9-week group training that applies these insights to personal development. We start by establishing a baseline with the Personal Resilience Indicator (PRI), a scientifically validated psychometric assessment. One element of the training deserves emphasis because nobody else offers it: if you hit a wall during the nine weeks, you do not wait for the next workshop. You book a private SOS session with Paul and work through it.
We start with establishing a baseline, using the Personal Resilience Indicator (PRI), a scientifically-validated psychometric assessment that measures your current level of resilience across six domains: Health, Purpose, Cognition, Perseverance, Composure and Relationships.
From here, we will embark on a 9-week training journey to help you build resilience systematically. The Resilience Training uses a combination of weekly interactive group workshops, workbooks guiding you step-by-step through the techniques, personal feedback in a private training community and, if needed, a 1-on-1 SOS call with Paul to support you in difficult times.
THE 9-WEEK RESILIENCE TRAINING AT-A-GLANCE
PERSONAL RESILIENCE INDICATOR
Measure your current level of resilience with our scientifically-validated resilience psychometric
Health
Learn how to make conscious lifestyle choices that support your physical and mental health
core beliefs
Uncover your limiting Core Beliefs that subconsciously drive your thoughts and behaviours
COMPOSURE
Create emotional self-awareness and develop your ability to regulate your emotions under pressure
PURPOSE
Discover what gives you meaning and a sense of direction in life
COGNITION
Strengthen how you solve problems and create insights
PERSEVERANCE
Learn techniques to help you push through personal and professional challenges without exhausting yourself
RELATIONSHIPS
Understand how to use your intuition and trust to build mutually supportive relationships
WAY FORWARD
Measure your progress with the Personal Resilience Indicator and build your personal resilience game plan
HOW DOES IT WORK
PERSONAL RESILIENCE INDICATOR
Measure your current level of resilience with our state-of-the-art resilience psychometric
Weekly Live workshops
Learn how to build your resilience in 9 weekly workshops. Interact virtually with researchers from other institutes.
RESOURCE AREA
Review recordings from the live workshops and work through the exercises in the workbooks at your own pace.
PRIVATE COMMUNITY
Join our private training community, ask questions, interact and share your assignments
SOS SESSIONS
Book a 1-on-1 SOS session with Paul to help you push through challenges when you're struggling.
WHAT PAST PARTICIPANTS SAY ABOUT THE TRAINING
Meet Our Expert Trainers
At Mind Matters, our trainers are more than just instructors, they are seasoned professionals with hands-on experience in their fields. Each year, they continue building on their deep expertise, ensuring participants benefit from the latest insights and practical knowledge. Between them, they have trained thousands of early-stage researchers and mentored several all the way from PhD to habilitation.
Our courses are designed and delivered by the experts themselves, ensuring that participants receive the highest quality of training directly from those who practice what they teach. Assisted by hand-picked tutors who are distinguished former participants, our trainers excel in navigating diverse cultural contexts, having lived and worked in over 30 countries and with more than 40 nationalities. This extensive experience ensures that our training goes beyond ticking a box in your training catalogue to drive real, measurable change.
DR NADINE SINCLAIR
Nadine is a trusted advisor to corporate and academic leaders and one of the Managing Directors of Mind Matters. A scientist by training and at heart, she conducted her doctoral research at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry. She brings 30,000+ hours of hands-on project management experience, built across 18 years as a strategy consultant, at McKinsey and as an independent consultant, managing projects for research institutions, research foundations, pharmaceutical and biotech companies (including many Fortune 500) and governments. She continues to build that expertise with over 1,000 hours of project management each year, bridging science and business practice with the latest insights from neuroscience and behavioural economics.
PAUL SINCLAIR
Paul is one of the Managing Directors of Mind Matters. He is passionate about helping high-achievers transform their resilience, emotional intelligence, and leadership style to become more authentic leaders of themselves and others. He is a certified Compassionate Inquiry practitioner, one of a small group personally trained and certified by Dr Gabor Maté and Sat Dharam Kaur over two and a half years. Paul also leads train-the-trainer courses that equip other trainers, coaches and therapists to assess and build resilience, and more than 20,000 leaders, coaches and trainers follow his teaching on professional networks. Building on his experience as a Royal Navy engineer and submarine veteran, competitive athlete, recovering addict and successful entrepreneur, he knows first-hand what it takes to change ingrained patterns of thought, feeling and behaviour.
MORE SUCCESS STORIES FROM PAST PARTICIPANTS
I usually have a good "gut feeling" about things, but I wasn't very good in reading it. I am now allowing myself the time to take a step back to identify the issue, and to counteract it. This has worked well in several situations now, and I am proud of having improved my (self-) emotional literacy.
FLORIAN
I think the most significant thing that I can mention is that most of us are struggling in some way, and just because things might look shiny from the outside, it does not mean that things are easy for those that seem to have shiny sailboats.
SEBASTIAN
I thought before that my struggles only happened to me, but I realized how much we have in common. Especially the feeling of being unworthy is so common amongst us all. I have found how other people have learned to make peace with their conflicts and struggles very motivating.
TISYA
I was surprised how easy it was during the breakout rooms to talk about very private problems, anxieties etc. I would never talk to strangers like this, but it seems that it is enough to collectively put down our 'masks' to start to trust others...
EVA-MARIA
Are you a researcher and think this training belongs in your graduate school or institute programme? Send it to the person who books training.
Many of Our Alumni Move On to Leading Companies
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
For participants
A 2-day workshop is a great way to get an introduction to stress management. However, after the workshop you’re on your own to apply the techniques and build new habits. In our experience this is where people struggle. This is why we designed the Resilience Training as an implementation training: it does not only teach you the techniques (just like in a 2-day workshop), but also guides you step-by-step through the implementation. The weekly virtual workshops and The Seminar Room (a private community for the participants of the training) are great opportunities for you to interact with your trainers and other researchers, get all your questions answered and receive actionable feedback on the weekly assignments.
The programme runs for 9 consecutive weeks. Each Monday afternoon (16:00-18:00 CET), we kick off the week with a live 2-hr workshop centered around one aspect of resilience. For each week there are workbooks and templates to guide you through the implementation of the techniques. You will also be supported in The Seminar Room (a private community for the participants of the training) throughout the week. While the training takes 9 weeks to complete, you will have access to the content and the recordings of the workshops for 4 full months.
The Resilience Training for Researchers focuses on both learning and doing: each workshop teaches you the principles and techniques and allows you to digest the information at your own pace during the week. The workbooks and templates guide you through the implementation of the techniques. The Seminar Room (a private community for the participants of the training) is where you can get all your questions answered, receive feedback on your assignments and learn from the other participants.
No. As the name suggests, this is a training course. While some techniques may be similar to some techniques used in therapeutic approaches, this course is neither therapy, nor a substitute for therapy or other medical treatments.
If you’re currently working with a mental health professional, psychologist, psychotherapist, psychiatrist, counsellor or similar, please discuss your participation in the Resilience Training with them ahead of signing up.
You will not require software to complete the program. We are strong believers in pragmatic, hands-on approaches rather than locking you in a particular software package or trying to sell you an app. You can apply all of the concepts using pen and paper. Where appropriate we will provide you with recommendations for apps or additional resources that you can explore.
Once you signed the course agreement you will have access to our members area. A short series of videos will give you an overview of the training and how to make the most out of the 9 weeks. You will also find the workbooks, information on your assignments, the recordings of the live workshops and further resources in the members area.
During the weekly live workshops and inside The Seminar Room (a private community for the participants of the training) you can get your questions answered, receive feedback on your assignments and learn from the other participants.
We kick off the training with the first virtual Monday workshop from 16:00-18:00 CET (Berlin time). You will receive the registration details together with your welcome email. The workshops are interactive sessions with breakouts, so it’s important that you have both a working camera on your device and an audio connection. You can also use a phone dial-in, if you don’t have a microphone on your device. You can find the details in the confirmation email.
Before the first workshop, we will ask you to view a short series of videos that will give you an overview of the training and how to make the most out of the 9 weeks. You will also receive the link to the Personal Resilience Indicator, our proprietary Resilience psychometric. It’s important that you complete the assessment within the deadline, so that you receive the report with your scores in time for the first workshop.
The Personal Resilience Indicator (PRI) is our proprietary resilience psychometric. We’re quite proud of it as it’s the most comprehensive, independently validated resilience assessment currently available. Not only does it integrate the latest insights from neuroscience and psychology, it is the only resilience assessment that does not only measure the status quo but also provides the granularity needed to build resilience quickly. The PRI takes the form of an online self-assessment with 64 questions that takes approximately 10-15 min to complete. It provides actionable insights across 12 subdomains, each representing a distinct construct that can be improved by targeted practice. We developed it together with expert guidance from neuroscientists, psychologists, executive coaches, and mental health professionals. The PRI also passed independent validation by a renowned psychometric expert. You can read more about it at personalresilienceindicator.com.
The private community for the Resilience Training is hosted on our website. You do need to register with our community to join and will be able to navigate to it straight from the members area where you access the course materials. Everything is in one place.
No. Everything you need to complete the training is accessed in the members area online and inside The Seminar Room (a private community for the participants of the training).
No. The content of each week builds on the principles of the previous weeks. The workbooks for the coming week will be unlocked on Thursday evening each week. This way you have enough time to print out the workbook ahead of the workshop. Don’t worry, you will be able to watch the recordings of the workshops again in the members area.
Each Monday we’ll meet for a 2-hr virtual workshop from 16:00-18:00 CET (Berlin time). The workbook for each week will guide you through the exercise bit by bit in your own time. Each week you will be asked to complete assignments in the Seminar Room (a private community for the participants of the training) and you will receive personal feedback on your assignments from your trainers provided you complete them on time. The total amount of time spent depends on your situation and willingness to apply the techniques. Most of our past participants spent between 3-4 hours each week to attend the workshop and practice the techniques.
The Resilience Training will teach you the principles of building resilience and guide you step-by-step through implementation. It’s only natural that you may have questions as you are applying the techniques. So we have set up a support system to make sure you can get help quickly. For the nine weeks of the training you will have access to The Seminar room, which is the private community exclusively for participants of the training. It’s a great place to get help from your trainers and to learn from the other participants and tutors. If you are struggling, you will have the opportunity to book in a one-time SOS-call, a private coaching session with Paul.
Once you signed up and signed the Course Agreement, you will receive a welcome email with your access details to the members area, an email from Zoom with your workshop registration details, an email with an invitation to join The Seminar Room (a private community for the participants of the training) and guidance on the next steps to get you started.
If you signed up for the Resilience Training via your university, you may be eligible for credits. Please check with the program coordinator at your institution. To receive credits you need to attend the weekly live workshops, take the Personal Resilience Indicator (our proprietary Resilience psychometric) and complete the weekly assignments in the Seminar Room. If you have signed up privately, check with your programme coordinator whether they will grant you credits for the training.
The weekly live workshops are delivered via Zoom video conference each Monday from 16:00-18:00 CET (Berlin time). This is also an opportunity to get your questions answered and interact with the other participants and the tutors! You will receive the Zoom registration details together with your welcome email.
The live workshops are the most important part of the training, and attendance is what makes the change stick; it is also a prerequisite for credits. If you have to miss a workshop, watch the recording and let us know. If you signed up via your institution, check with your course coordinator whether you remain eligible for credits if you miss a workshop. All live workshops are recorded and you can watch the recordings at any time in the members area.
The training runs 9 weeks, but you will receive access to the content and the recordings of the workshops for 4 months (from the start of the training), so that you have plenty of time to revisit the content later on if and when needed.
You can find just about anything online these days. Does this mean it’s actually valuable and help you make changes? That’s a question that only you can answer.
For coordinators and institutions
Most of our partner institutions book places for their PhD students and postdoctoral researchers in the open classes, or commission a dedicated cohort for their institution. Participants join the weekly live workshops online, so no travel or venue is required. Many graduate schools link this page directly from their own training catalogues so that prospective participants can make an informed decision before registering.
Yes. For larger groups we run institution-specific cohorts on agreed dates. The structure remains the same: nine weekly live workshops, the Personal Resilience Indicator at the start and the end, workbooks, The Seminar Room and SOS sessions. Book a call and we will discuss what fits your institution’s calendar and needs.
Credit eligibility is set by your institution, not by us. What we provide is the verified basis for it: we confirm to your institution each participant’s attendance at the weekly live workshops, their Personal Resilience Indicator assessments and their weekly assignments. Many partner institutions grant credits on this basis; your graduate school decides the number.
Every participant takes the Personal Resilience Indicator, an independently validated psychometric, at the start and the end of the nine weeks. That means the training’s effect is measured, individually and at cohort level, rather than assumed. Book a call and we will walk you through how the measurement works and what our partner institutions have seen.
The Resilience Training is a training course, not therapy or a substitute for therapy. Participants who are currently working with a mental health professional are asked to discuss their participation with them before signing up. The training complements institutional mental health provision; it does not replace it.