Coaching for Researchers
Coaching helps researchers clarify their role, make better decisions, and lead themselves and their teams with greater confidence. It creates space to reflect on priorities, values, and direction within the complexity of academic life.
Many researchers move into leadership roles without formal preparation for managing people, navigating team dynamics, or making strategic decisions. At the same time, expectations in academia continue to grow, ranging from publishing and securing funding to collaboration, supervision, and institutional responsibilities. Coaching gives you space to step back from day-to-day pressures and look at your career or research from a broader perspective. Rather than telling you what to do, it helps you find your own answers and clarify your priorities, leadership style, and next steps.
For some, coaching is about leading a team more effectively. For others, it is about handling difficult decisions, navigating change, or finding a more sustainable way of working in science.
What Can Coaching Offer Researchers?
Clarifying Priorities, Values, and Decision-Making
Coaching helps you define what truly matters in your work and align your daily decisions with your core values. This makes it easier to prioritize and confidently say yes or no while staying focused on what is most important to you.
Gaining Perspective and Strategic Direction
Coaching creates space to step back from day-to-day demands and view your career or research from a broader perspective. This helps you make more intentional and strategic decisions about your future direction.
Improving Communication and Team Leadership
Coaching supports clear and constructive communication within your team. It strengthens your ability to lead others through open dialogue, constructive feedback, and shared responsibility for achieving goals.
Managing Your Work and Energy More Sustainably
Coaching helps you become more aware of how you manage your time, workload, and energy, so you can develop more sustainable working habits and find a healthier balance between performance and wellbeing.
Who is Coaching for?
- PhD students, postdocs, and early-career researchers looking to clarify their career direction
- Researchers transitioning into new roles (e.g., from individual contributor to team leader)
- Principal investigators and group leaders wanting to discover new ways to lead and develop their teams
- Researchers navigating multiple roles, responsibilities, and expectations
- Anyone facing important career or project-related decisions
- Anyone seeking a more intentional, sustainable, and reflective approach to working in science
What Topics Can Coaching Address?
- Setting priorities and managing workload effectively
- Clarifying career direction and long-term goals
- Preparing for grant applications or launching new research projects
- Building, shaping, and leading research teams
- Improving communication, feedback, and collaboration within teams
- Strengthening confidence and clarity in your role as a researcher or leader
- Navigating challenging situations, change, or conflicts
- Making complex decisions about opportunities and partnerships
- Aligning your work with your values and what matters most to you
How Coaching Works
Coaching usually takes place in one-to-one sessions tailored to your situation and goals. Sessions can be held online or in person, either as a single session or as a part of a long-term coaching process. There is no single “right reason” to start coaching. Sometimes one conversation is enough to gain clarity or see a challenge from a different perspective.
We work with trusted coaches who understand the realities of academic and research environments. If you are considering coaching, whether for leadership, career direction, communication, or decision-making, feel free to reach out. We will help you explore what type of support could be most useful for your current situation.
Interested in coaching?
Don’t hesitate to reach out! I’ll be happy to discuss your goals and help you find the right coaching support.
Radka Kozáková
Leadership Academy Manager
Our Partners
In 2026, we established a partnership with the Czech ICF Chapter to support the development of coaching and leadership in science.
Together, we organize events, workshops, and networking opportunities focused on leadership, communication, and research culture.
Read more about the partnership with ICF
Our ambassador for coaching in science is Marie Feřtrová, a certified coach and researcher. With a background in both scientific research and professional coaching, she helps us show how coaching can support researchers and raise awareness of its benefits within the scientific community.