A Ph.D. often requires several years to complete; throughout this time, students face both intellectual and emotional challenges. As many of the students experience enthusiasm in the process, others have negative feelings (Stubb et al., 2011). The extraordinarily competitive academic environment, stressful conditions (Mattijssen et al., 2021), lack of permanent contacts and research funding, and increasingly difficult working conditions (Olsthoorn et al., 2020) have  negative effect on academic well-being and mental health. Thus doctoral students were seen as high-risk group for problems with their mental health and well-being that may affect the quality and quantity of the researcher’s output  (Levecque et al., 2017). 

Researcher Mental Health Observatory (ReMO) COST Action network (234 members representing 34 EU countries) is one of the first coordinated and evidence-based European initiatives addressing mental health and well-being issues in academia. In the public declaration called ReMO Manifesto, ReMO aims to develop strategies for researcher well-being and mental health which are prioritized by World Health Organisation (WHO), International Labour Organisation (ILO), and European Commission (EC) in the past decade. ReMO aims to promote and improve mental health and well-being of researchers through developing strategies for how Europa and national level organizations proposed frameworks for improving career development for doctoral and early career researchers in academia and beyond. 

Thus, it is crucial to examine how and in what ways doctoral organizations such as Eurodoc and Vitae have been known to provide support for doctoral candidates and address well-being and mental health needs. Eurodoc,  European Council of Doctoral Candidates and Junior Researchers is an international federation of 26 national associations of early career researchers (ECRs) from Europe. Eurodoc was established as a non-profit, global volunteer organization in 2005 based in Brussels after first being launched in 2002. Eurodoc interacts with all significant European stakeholders and plays important role to inform policy at the European level. Eurodoc (2018) proposed a transferable skills and competency framework that consist of nine competence categories for early career researchers to be used in doctoral training as follows: career development, cognitive, communication, digital, enterprise, interpersonal, mobility, research, teaching, and supervision. Besides, it conducts projects, and training activities for researchers, and creates a learning community among researchers. 

 Another important organization supporting the professional development of researchers is Vitae with over 50 years of experience. Vitae aims to empower doctoral researchers, provide professional and career development support for researchers, and inform policy related to researcher development.  To achieve this, Researcher Development Framework (RDF), developed by Vitae with the help of the United Kingdom Higher Education sector and other stakeholders, provides a highly comprehensive approach to researcher development (2010). The RDF is a professional development framework for planning, promoting, and supporting the personal, professional, and career development of researchers in higher education. The RDF has four domains as follows: knowledge and intellectual abilities, personal effectiveness, research governance, organization, engagement, influence, and impact. Similar to Eurodoc, Vitae organizes events for researchers such as project meetings, conferences, training, and creating a learning community.  Both of these organizations originally were focusing on developing academic skills and competencies, and only more recently they have expanded their focus to include the mental health and well-being of doctoral students.

In this context, the aim of this study is to compare and contrast the steps these two prominent organizations, which play a crucial role in doctoral researcher development, are taking related to the well-being and mental health of doctoral students that have a crucial role in doctoral researcher development. More specifically, the research question for this exploration is:

- How are doctoral researchers’ well-being and mental health needs being addressed by Eurodoc and Vitae?   

Qualitative document analysis was used in order to reveal how doctoral researchers’ well-being and mental health needs are being addressed by Eurodoc and Vitae identifying the similarities and differences between the two organizations in terms of addressing issues of well being and mental health. Document analysis is known as the systematic review and evaluation of documents, including printed and electronic (computer-based and Internet-transmitted) materials. Document analysis has generally been used in complementary with other research methods, although it can be employed on its own. The research process follows finding, selecting, appraising (making sense of), and synthesizing data in the documents (Bowen, 2009). Similar to other analytical-qualitative research methods, data needs to be investigated and interpreted to elicit meaning and provide empirical knowledge (Corbin & Strauss, 2008) by identifying conceptual boundaries (Charmaz, 2003). Data were collected through a compare and contrast rubric developed by the researchers to review existing documents O’Leary (2014) classifies the documents in three categories as public records, personal documents, and physical evidence. The ongoing records of Eurodoc and Vitae can be considered public documents since they are open-access documents. While planning the document analysis procedure, the 8-step guideline of O’leary (2014) was followed which is gathering relevant information, developing a management plan, making copies of originals, assessing the authenticity of documents, exploring documents and background information, asking questions to document (who, why, when produced document?), and exploring the content. Thematic data analysis was used for the qualitative data analysis which is a method of identifying, organizing, analyzing, and reporting patterns (themes) within data. The thematic analysis enables the researcher to see and make sense of common or shared meanings and experiences by focusing on meaning across a data set (Braun & Clarke, 2012). Six phases of the thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) was used while analyzing documentary data that can be identified as familiarizing with data, generating initial codes, searching for themes, reviewing potential themes, defining and naming themes, and reporting.

Especially in recent years, it has been revealed that doctoral students are a group at risk in terms of well-being and mental health, it is seen that this has increased to an even more crucial dimension with the Covid 19 pandemic. Research also shows that decreased well-being may have dire consequences for doctoral researchers, such as developing serious health problems and leaving the doctoral program. Given the importance of doctoral researchers' well-being, with the current exploration, we expect to uncover to what extent and how doctoral researchers’ well-being and mental health needs are being addressed by Eurodoc and Vitae. The analysis will reveal the similarities and differences between the two organizations in terms of addressing issues of well-being and mental health. Our first impressions from the Vitae and Eurodoc webpages are that their main focus is to provide more academic skills support, while support resources and services related to doctoral students' well-being are at the initial level. In conclusion, through the current examination, we hope to identify effective support practices for addressing the well-being and mental health issues of doctoral students from these two organizations with extensive know-how in supporting doctoral researcher development which could serve as a guide for higher education institutions to develop well-being support for their doctoral students.

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