As a young VU Amsterdam researcher, during your tenure as a PhD student or postdoc you will be confronted by a range of issues and bottlenecks. Of course, your supervisor will be able to support you, but it’s sometimes also nice to find solutions together with peers: colleagues who are in the same position as you. Driven by the need for reflection and to enable colleagues to exchange ideas, the HR department started organising the biennial peer coaching programme in 2020, in which ten facilitators are trained to guide their own peer group. Nicky, Mariah, Maud and Sacha participated in a peer review group that started in 2022 and they’re still supporting each other now! What is their experience of peer coaching?
They registered for the sessions for a variety of reasons. One was already planning to establish peer review groups for teacher training for primary education (PABO) students as part of her research, while another became curious after reading about peer review groups in a newsletter. A key common motivation, however, was the need for contact with colleagues, especially after the COVID-19 period.
Can you describe what peer coaching means for you?
Mariah: You can rely on each other and it feels good to know that you’re not alone with your struggles, irrespective of your field of research. The peer review sessions are also experienced as being a safe environment, as they involve participants from various faculties. In fact, it’s a real bonus that they’re not colleagues from your own department that you interact with on a daily basis.
Maud: Being able to discuss problems that we’re all familiar with. How should I handle a difficult meeting with my supervisor? How can I find a good balance between my teaching and research duties? How do I stay motivated? We’ve been able to really support each other on these topics.
Nicky: I always found it interesting to hear others say that they’re facing the same problems as you, even though you work in totally different fields. That may make you think that they’ll probably come up with the same solutions, so you wonder if there’s any point. But everyone addresses these issues from a different perspective, actually. You end up leaving such a session thinking: well I’d never have thought about it in that way.
Sacha: Sometimes you face problems and you think: well that’s just how things are. Everyone struggles with this. You don’t even realise that you could use some support. During these sessions, you start realising that you most definitely can be helped.
What happens during such a peer coaching session?
Sacha: The facilitator (Mariah, Ed.) gets to chair the session. Everyone thinks of an issue in advance. What am I struggling with right now? We then make an inventory before deciding which issue to discuss.
Mariah: As the issue first needs to be very clear, the group then asks various questions to help clarify it. The person whose issue is being discussed then leaves the rest to discuss it. Maybe there’s more to it? What can you read between the lines? What really is the problem here? The person whose issue is being discussed can then respond to the recommendations we make. The session always concludes by asking: what will we take away from this and what did we learn?
Nicky: It’s important that you don’t start by immediately making recommendations. Many people are too quick to come up with all the answers for others. That’s why you first need to just ask questions until the issue is really clear. You may then discover that A isn’t the actual question, but B is. That there’s an underlying problem. You would never have discovered this if you hadn’t asked questions.
What made the peer coaching so special that you still see each other?
Mariah: We’re all roughly at the same stage of our PhD journey. I find it helps when you’re in approximately the same year of your PhD, as you’re all facing the same issues and can develop together, so you always understand each other.
Maud: I also think, and this may be specific to this group, that it helps that we’re all young women in academia. We’re all confronted by this in our own way. It’s an additional challenge. You do feel you’re in the minority, especially in the business school. I’m aware of the fact that you’re always a step behind as a young woman in academia. It’s not always intentional but it’s always there in the background. That’s why it’s so valuable if you’re able to support each other in this.
So you actually support each other. Not just professional but also moral support.
Maud: Oh, definitely! Perhaps we provide even more moral support than professional. It also helps you in your meetings with supervisors. Even though you have an idea of how to handle these meetings, discussing it with each other gives you more arguments so you’re much more confident in that meeting. When you have a meeting with your supervisor, it’s important that you have the self-confidence to say: this is what I want. That you’ve tested your arguments and you can stick to your boundaries. What do I think is acceptable and what isn’t?
Why should people take part in the peer coaching programme?
Nicky: I’d suggest taking part in more than one session. See if you can form a group so you can also meet up in the longer term. You won’t be able to build the necessary level of trust in just one sessions and won’t yet want to discuss the difficult things about your PhD. That bond of trust is so very important and it takes time.
Maud: For many PhD students, it can be quite a lonely journey. You’re really focused on your own work. Of course, you have contact with your supervisor but there’s a certain power relationship at play there. You don’t yet have the network and support to help you through everything. Such a peer coaching group is a fantastic opportunity to build such a network. It makes the journey that bit easier for you. It’s maybe also worth emphasising that, ideally, this is something to start in your first or second year, as that makes it even nicer. We started in our second year and we’re now all approaching the finish line. We used to discuss such things as how to share your vision with your supervisor, or your publication strategy, but now it’s more about how to structure your doctoral thesis. Or what you’ll be wearing to your defence. So the topics change as you develop. It’s so great to travel on that journey together.
Nicky: It also gives you insight into what actually happens outside your own little world; outside your department. What other research is being conducted? How does that look and what’s the culture like in other departments? I think I’ve also increasingly started to realise that there’s not one VU Amsterdam but lots of VU Amsterdam islands. And you’re not aware of that if you’re only ever involved with what’s happening on your own island.
A new peer review round will be organised in January 2026. For more information, please contact lidy.stassen@vu.nl.
The people depicted are not the same as those in the article.