Table 1 Survey cover and questions. Multiple-choice answers are highlighted by square brackets and italicised text

Demographic and background questions

1. What gender are you?[Female; Male; Do not want to state; Other]

2. Do you have caretaking responsibilities? Caretaking includes childcare, schooling, eldercare, disabled care. [Yes; No; Prefer not to answer]

3. What year in your PhD are you?[years in program – out of planned years]

Pedagogical perspective questions

1. Has any of the following changed [during the pandemic]?

a) Quality of the mentoring?[Improved; unchanged; worsened; N/A]

Answers to this question were used to segment respondents into two groups:

- Group 1 answered that their mentorship had been improved or was unchanged,

- Group 2 experienced a worsened mentorship during the pandemic.

b) Frequency of the supervision?[Improved; unchanged; worsened; N/A]

2. During the pandemic, has the format of your meetings with your supervisor(s) changed?[More; unaffected; less; none; N/A]

3. Open answered question: What (if anything) do you wish that the supervisors/mentors would change in order to help you cope with the COVID-19 related restrictions during your PhD?[Nothing, I did not need any help; I got all the help I needed, specifically my mentor helped me (fill in the box); I did not get help, but would suggest the following (fill in the box)]

Survey cover and informed consent

The purpose of this survey is to understand how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected PhD students in Sweden, with a specific focus on the doctoral programs that require experimental/medical/biomedical research.

By answering this questionnaire, you give your consent that your answers may be analysed and used for educational purposes and/or in a scientific publication.

This is an anonymous questionnaire. Please do not provide any personal information (e.g. name, email addresses, phone numbers etc.) in the open answered questions.

The program used to generate the questionnaire and collect the data does not register IP addresses. Overall, the answers received will be compiled and analysed on a group level. For the questions where it is possible to provide detailed comments (i.e. open answers), the text may be analysed in isolation. However, all answers will be reported in an anonymised format. This survey is conducted by Dr. Emma Börgeson at the Wallengerg laboratory, Sahlgrenska University Hospital and the University of Gothenburg.