A step-by-step system that takes first-time researchers from "stuck and unsure" to submitted, with professor feedback at every step.
Apply to work with Prof StucklerTakes about two minutes. We reply to every application.
Start here · about 30 minutes
Choosing a topic that can actually be answered, using the Convergence Method. Running a Forensic Search that gives you an argument instead of nine hundred PDFs. Writing in the order that does not stall. Watch this first; the application will make more sense afterwards.
The shortcut
Most researchers ask "How do I get published?" Smart researchers ask "Who can show me the fastest way?" At FastTrack, we cut the fluff and give you a direct, proven path to publication: step-by-step training, feedback from professors, and daily on-demand support.
Who you would be working with
Formerly at Harvard, Oxford and Cambridge, I have published over 400 peer-reviewed papers, in journals including Nature, The Lancet, the British Medical Journal, PLoS Medicine and PNAS, and I am ranked in the top 1% of cited scientists worldwide.
What interests me now is a structural problem: why so many capable researchers never publish. Universities assume you will absorb the mechanics by osmosis. Supervisors are stretched thin. Careful people lose years on topics that were doomed from the first week. FastTrack is what I wish someone had taught me at the beginning.
See my full publication record →Why it takes people so long
Most first papers are lost here, months before anyone writes a sentence. The question is unanswerable with the data available, or it has been answered four times already.
An unfocused literature search returns nine hundred papers and no argument. Done properly it returns forty and tells you exactly where your contribution sits.
People write the introduction first. It is the last thing you can write honestly, and starting there is why drafts stall at 60 percent for a year.
Fix those three and the timeline collapses, not because anyone worked faster, but because the wasted year never happens. That is the whole of what we teach.
AI / Why not just use AI?
AI is good at the next sentence. It's bad at the next six months. It will polish a literature review for a topic that was never publishable, agree with a framing a reviewer will reject, and send you confidently down dead-ends, because it optimises for the answer in front of it, not for your career. What gets researchers published isn't more information. It's judgement: knowing which topic survives peer review, when a draft is done, and when to stop reading and start writing. That's what the mentorship gives you.
Where most first papers start
Many of the researchers we work with publish a systematic review first. It sits at the top of the evidence hierarchy, it is what clinical and policy guidelines are built on, and it runs entirely on published literature. No data collection, no ethics committee, nothing that cannot be done in five to ten hours a week alongside a full course load or a first job. Our systematic review programme takes you through it step by step, from question to submission.
Our commitment
Most programmes end when the term ends. Ours does not.
That holds as long as you hold up your end:
That's the whole arrangement. No small print about which journals count, and no time limit that ends your support.
Apply to work with Prof StucklerIn her own words
As a science student she felt behind, and a little like a fraud. Ninety days later, she'd gone from stuck and unsure to published in a high-impact journal. She followed the FastTrack Method: step-by-step training, feedback from professors, daily on-demand support. Built for first-time researchers.
When the method clicks
Physician with a military background and no first-author experience. Published three papers, including a systematic review, and was admitted with funding to doctoral programmes at Johns Hopkins, Berkeley and Boston University.
Three rejected papers became three published papers in nine months. Was doubting his fit for academia entirely; now invited to international conferences, PhD complete.
Individual members' actual results. Everyone's path differs: these are what happened for them, not a promise of what will happen for you.
Apply to work with Prof StucklerEvidence
Named authors. Real journals. Most link straight to the paper.
What you get
Asked and answered
Most people start there, and it's the best place to start, because the topic is where first papers are won or lost. In your roadmap session we generate and validate topic ideas against your interests, your access to data and your hours, using the Convergence Method, and map out three or four viable research questions. You leave with a validated topic, and you learn the method, so you can do it yourself for every paper after.
It depends on you, your data and your reviewers, and we do not put a date on acceptance, because that date is not ours to set. What we can tell you is how the work is structured: you always know the next step, and revisions are a normal part of the process rather than a sign something went wrong. Most researchers work five to ten hours a week. If a stretch of term or work makes that impossible, we adapt the plan; consistency matters more than intensity.
Much more than a course. You get a roadmap session that turns where you are now into a step-by-step plan, unlimited direct messaging with Prof Stuckler and the mentor team, two live group feedback workshops a week, detailed video feedback on everything you submit, and a community for day-to-day help. We guide you through execution; we don't hand you videos and wish you luck.
The videos teach the method. The mentorship applies it to your paper. The difference is feedback on your actual work: your topic validated against the literature, your drafts marked up, your next step always clear. Watching someone else's paper get fixed is not the same as having yours fixed.
Submit your work at any stage: research questions, abstracts, literature reviews, draft sections. You get detailed video feedback, often screen-recorded with commentary, showing exactly what to change. There's live feedback at the weekly workshops, and if your timetable means you miss them, you still submit and still get a personalised video response.
Almost certainly. Our methods apply across social sciences, health research, business, education, engineering, humanities, and more. The frameworks for choosing a topic, doing a clean literature review, writing methods, and getting through peer review are field-agnostic. The one honest exception: if you need advanced technical support on something like string theory, we're not the right place. (We can probably point you to someone in our network who is.)
No. We work alongside your supervisor, not around them. Most members join because their supervisor is stretched thin, not absent. Many find supervision meetings get more productive once they arrive with validated questions and structured drafts.
No, and many of the people listed above started there. What you need is consistent weekly hours. You do not need a methods background. That is the part we teach.
Yes. Your work stays between you and the mentor team, and your ideas remain yours. We agree any authorship openly at the roadmap session, and only if you want it and the contribution earns it.
Only if you want that, and only where the contribution meets authorship criteria. Some researchers invite a mentor onto the paper; others keep sole authorship. The support is identical either way, and we agree it openly at the roadmap session rather than at the end.
Yes. Study design, data collection and analysis, with support for R, Stata and SPSS.
Tell us early. That is what the feedback calls and the daily messaging are for. Stalling is almost always a sign the plan needs adjusting rather than that you need to work harder, and adjusting it is quick once someone can see where you are stuck. And we do not stop at the end of the three months.
Apply
Click below to see if we're a good fit to work together. The application takes two minutes, and we'll point you to the right path either way.
Apply to work with Prof Stuckler