
where researchers thrive in a healthy work environment
Why Dear Academia?
Dear Academia believes in nurturing researchers’ wellbeing so they can maximize their impact and solve global challenges towards a sustainable future for all.

Our holistic approach focuses on synergies between individual, team and institution, how researchers successfully navigate challenges and how academic cultures support them to do so.
Here’s how Dear Academia can help:

Interactive seminars
A blend of insights, practical tools, and dynamic sharing between participants to foster the exchange of experience, find peer-to-peer support, and design strategies to support oneself towards nurturing wellbeing and reaching high potential.

Workshop Series
A structured training program designed for deep transformational change covering a holistic approach of the different key elements necessary to reach sustainable change. Sessions are built as a progressive process including homework, accountability tools, and dynamic exchange between participants.

Reflective circles
Engaging conversations to foster group reflection and drive academic culture change. Sessions are facilitated by a professional coach, allowing for all participants to learn from each other in a structured, focused and non-judgmental environment.
WORKSHOP SERIES
Navigate Academia and Maximize your Potential

Participants
%
rated us above 4 stars*
%
would recommend our events*
* among participants who answered the surveys
Make Wellbeing a Priority
We certainly will. Dear Academia supports researchers with…

Personal wellbeing
Resilience
Stress management & burnout prevention

High performance
Working from home toolbox
Creativity & mental clarity

Navigating academia
Career strategy in academia
Transition outside of academia
Sometimes, researchers may experience…
- Frustration to not reach full potential
- Difficulties to concentrate and be innovative
- Impostor syndrome
- Procrastination and perfectionism
- Dysfunctional leadership & non-supportive environment
- A tendency to hyper-loop problem solving & rumination
- Disturbances in sleep and habits
- High levels of stress, anxiety, and burnout
- Loneliness, overwhelm, or feeling undervalued
- Confusion about career path and what to do next
We’ve been there! Throughout our years working in academia, we faced and witnessed the same challenges.
Dear Academia is born from our dream to bring academia to its highest potential by supporting researchers to thrive in healthy working environments.
Testimonials & Featured Clients















Participants
%
rated us above 4 stars*
%
would recommend our events*
* among participants who answered the surveys
Who we are
We are trained researchers and educators. We combine our experience of the academic system with our competencies in leadership, coaching, and wellbeing to raise awareness, infuse change, and support researchers to fulfill their mission.

Deborah Rupert, Phd
Read Déborah's letter to Academia
You are home to many curious minds, a quite special world I must say. From the outside, you are the fascination of the unknown, the place where researchers daydream about how everything functions, waiting for the Eureka moment. On the inside, the reality hurts. Over the years, you have become a business, a place where curious minds are valued for producing results that bring a return on investments, measured by papers and citations, in competition with each other, running after funding to stay in the game.
I played this game a bit too hard during my PhD. I got caught in the downward spiral of long working hours and high expectations. You became the focus of my life, before health, friends and family. My fun for science disappeared, I was feeling like an impostor and I was too stressed to perform. Burnout almost knocked on my door.
During my recovery, I had a wake-up call. I realized that stress was infused in academia, spread across all levels, too spread to be the problem of isolated individuals. You are broken my dear academia. The race to deliver discoveries on demand has a high cost, a human cost. And it doesn’t make sense. You are the home for curious minds who need a safe place to flourish and be creative. I want to see you foster wellbeing, camaraderie and peer-to-peer support. A place where researchers feel balanced, equipped to manage their stress, and grow into their highest potential.
After years of working in academia, I decided to change course to help you – my fellow researchers. I became a wellbeing and career coach, dedicated to supporting you in your journey so you can thrive with your beautiful mind. Through 1-to-1 coaching, seminars and workshops, I offer tools for stress management, mental clarity, and career navigation.
Together, let’s make academia a healthy environment for you to thrive.
Déborah Rupert, PhD, wellbeing and career coach
Frida Rångtell, PHD
Frida Rångtell has a PhD in sleep and memory from Uppsala University, Sweden. Today she works as a sleep and habits educator, scientific advisor and runs Slumra of Sweden.

Read Frida's letter to Academia
I love science. I love new discoveries. I love the journey of mystery solving. I love asking those impossible questions. I don’t like how many terrific scientists with the same passion as me, are struggling with stress, mental health issues , and unhealthy working environment. I don’t like how many excellent scientists leave academia because of unsustainable conditions. I don’t like how many of my fellows scientists have completely lost their passion along the way.
I defended my thesis on sleep and memory at Uppsala University in 2019. Struggling my way through the ups and downs of the PhD life, I still feel like a recovering PhD student, happy to be on the other side.
So here I stand today, left with the feeling: we need to do something. We need to make sure that we increase the scientific quality. We need to make sure that researchers can flourish and grow, not fade.
With my background in sleep science, I know that there is a tight link between how we feel and perform and how we sleep, going both ways. I know what impacts how we sleep, what’s going on while we’re sleeping, at least as far as our current scientific knowledge goes. I know what we can do to help us get the snooze we need.
My support to you, my fellow researchers, is sharing my knowledge about sleep and healthy habits, to help us feel better and be better researchers.
Together we can make academia a healthy workplace.
Frida Rångtell, PhD, Sleep educator

Mette Sjöberg Anthonsen, phd
Mette Sjöberg Anthonsen has 25 years’ experience with facilitating groups and teams in various types of learning. She has a PhD in political science, is a certified coach (ICF, PCC) and divides her time between the University of Gothenburg, Sweden and her own leadership development company with a global client base. Her style is clear, empathetic, present and challenging – with great outputs for reflection and learning.
Read Mette's letter to Academia
You have given so much, and I am so happy to be in a relationship with you. Among the factors I highly appreciate are your capacity for grand thinking, enlightening discussions, and the many quests you facilitate to make the world a better place.
But – we need to sort out a few things: certain traits of your behavior are harmful as well. For example, the obsessive focus on measurable accomplishments, competitive grant-systems that lead to year-long job-insecurities, your twisted perceptions of internal power hierarchies…. In short; you are quite a mouthful. Since I appreciate our relationship so much and want it to continue, I find it meaningful to contribute to making you a better partner.
I do that by facilitating individual personal and professional development for humans, who want to continue contributing to you. Specifically, what I offer is:
- Individual coaching for professionals at all levels in academia
- Training / learning for teams and groups regarding e.g. career planning, (self)leadership, competence mapping and leadership.
Mette Sjöberg Anthonsen, PhD, coach
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the process to book an event?
- You contact us and we get on a call to discuss your challenges, access your needs, and explore which format of event would suit you best.
- We send you a proposition offer for format, content & budget
- We book a time for the event and make it happen 🙂
What is the difference between an interactive seminar and a workshop series?
What knowledge and tools do you share in your programs?
- Develop self-leadership
- Take action towards sustainable personal wellbeing
- Nurture resilience & stress-management skills
- Improve sleep and healthy habits
- Declutter the mind & reach mental clarity
- Create healthy boundaries between professional and private life
- Encourage peer-to-peer support
- Contribute to a positive and healthy academic culture
- Deepen the knowledge of how the academic system functions
- Gain clarity about career paths in academia and beyond
Can we hand-pick specific topics to focus on?
Can we have events focusing on a specific role (PhD students, PostDocs, etc..)?
Can you facilitate events for our research group/ institutional day?
What are the benefits of reflective circles?
They often mention that realizing they are not alone was a big mind shift, helping them to dare asking for and offering support to colleagues. This is at the core of a healthy academic work environment.
Bringing an external facilitation in the process has multiple benefits:
-
- Engaging all participants and making sure everyone is heard
- Improving the outcome of the discussion as the facilitator safeguards the frame of the process, making sure multiple angles are explored without deviating from the main topic.
- Allowing the team leader to be fully engaged in the conversation as participant, removing the power shift that may prevent other team members to speak up openly.
- Offering a safe environment to manage dysfunctional group behaviors and conflicts professionally
- Driving the group towards accountability and action following the discussion.
- It’s fun! 🙂
Do you have a maximum of participants per event?
Can we have multiple facilitators in the same event?
What is your facilitation style?
How does the price vary between types of events?
Let’s hop on a call and we tell you all about it! Contact us
Can I get personal coaching/support from one of the facilitators of Dear Academia?
- Deborah Rupert – www.deborahrupert.com
- Frida Rångtell – www.slumra.nu
- Mette Sjöberg Anthonsen – www.imparo.se