Power affects openness
Supervisors influence funding, authorship, references, and daily working conditions. That power imbalance can make it difficult for researchers to speak openly.
About RateYourPI
Academia has a secret.Everyone knows it. Few discuss it.
Researchers often choose a supervisor using whispers, private messages, and luck. RateYourPI exists to make meaningful mentorship context easier to find before years of someone’s career are committed.
Make mentorship information more accessible.
The supervisor relationship shapes far more than research output. It can affect funding, publications, recommendations, confidence, and wellbeing.
Choosing a principal investigator, supervisor, or advisor is one of the most consequential decisions in a researcher’s career. Yet reliable information about communication, expectations, lab culture, and mentorship is rarely available before that decision is made.
RateYourPI provides a place for researchers to share verified, protected experiences. The goal is to support better-informed choices and encourage thoughtful, ethical mentorship across institutions and countries.
We are not here to destroy reputations. We are here to make information that already travels in whispers more accessible.
A major decision made with incomplete information.
Profiles show achievement
Publication records rarely describe mentorship style, expectations, communication, or the lived experience of joining a particular lab.
Private networks are unequal
Informal advice helps people with strong connections while leaving international, first-generation, and less-connected researchers with less context.
RateYourPI aims to level that playing field by making mentorship experiences more accessible, honest, and comparable.
Transparency without exposing reviewers.
Reviewers confirm that they belong to the academic community. Verification details are never displayed with a review.
Institutional email
Automated · about 30 secondsConfirm your academic affiliation through an institutional email address. The address is used only for verification.
Academic profile
Manual · reviewed within 24 hoursUse a ResearchGate, Google Scholar, or LinkedIn profile when institutional email verification is not available.
Identity stays separate from the review
Moderation screens for harassment, defamation, and identifying information while preserving useful firsthand detail. Reviews reflect individual experiences, not statements from institutions.
Difficult experiences are only half the story.
The Hall of Mentors
Retired PIs who invested in their researchers, championed their careers, and created a lasting legacy of ethical mentorship can be recognized in the Hall of Mentors.
Great mentorship deserves to be remembered too.
Visit the Hall of MentorsBuilt by someone who needed it.
RateYourPI was founded by a PhD and former postdoctoral researcher with experience across several universities in Europe and beyond. The platform grew from the experience of joining a lab without enough information and living with the consequences.
The founder remains private so the focus stays on the community and its mission. This is not about one person’s story. It is about the many researchers who recognize it.
One experience can add context
Help the next researcher choose with more information.
No public profile. Your verification details are never displayed.
Write an anonymous review