For doctoral programmes
A window into the doctorate, before the quiet year happens.
Lumen is a workspace a doctoral candidate runs their own research in – milestones, studies, literature, fieldwork, coursework and supervisor communication in one place, kept current by an assistant that proposes and never decides. For a programme, the interesting part is the side effect: when the work lives somewhere structured, progress stops being something you have to ask about.
The demo is a fictional researcher's workspace, fully loaded. No account, nothing to install.
What changes for the programme
The stall becomes visible early
Doctorates rarely fail loudly. They go quiet, and by the time a supervisor notices, a year has gone. A shared window makes a slowdown legible while it is still cheap to fix.
Supervision gets cheaper to give
Weekly briefings draft themselves from what the candidate actually did, in the candidate's own writing voice. A supervisor arrives at the meeting already informed, without anyone writing a status report.
The research stays the candidate's
Workspaces are isolated, hosted in the EU (Frankfurt), and nothing in them is ever used to train a model. The programme sees progress; it does not acquire the work.
How a cohort runs it
One conversation, no procurement
A 30-minute call to see whether the fit is real. Nothing is signed, and nothing is installed on your side - Lumen is a hosted web app.
Candidates open their own workspaces
Each researcher gets an isolated workspace of their own. They own it, and it stays theirs if they later leave the programme.
Supervisors join with an access code
No account, no password, no onboarding session. A supervisor follows a link, enters a code and sees a read-only window into the work.
The programme sees the cohort, not the drafts
Directors get what a programme actually needs - who is moving, who has stalled, which milestones are slipping. Not a surveillance feed of anyone's unfinished writing.
We are working with our first programmes now.
Lumen is taking on a small number of doctoral programmes ahead of general launch, and the arrangement is put together for each one rather than sold off a price list. What we ask in return is the same every time: honest feedback, a short call now and then, and candidates who tell us plainly when something is wrong or missing.
- What your candidates get
- The full product – unlimited AI intake, transcripts, premium models, 10 GB each. Nothing held back for a later tier.
- What we ask
- Structured feedback while they use it, and permission to fix the things they find.
- What it looks like after
- Every candidate decides for themselves whether to continue. Nobody is locked in, and everything exports.
What it costs the programme
If candidates pay for themselves
Nothing. There is no per-seat charge to the department and no contract to sign. A candidate pays €19 a month if they choose to stay past the free trial, and that is their ceiling – the programme carries no exposure at all.
If the programme funds it centrally
Institutional licences are quoted per programme, against your real cohort size and how long you want the licence to run. There is no list price to work around and no seat minimum. Tell us the cohort and we will put a figure in writing.
What Lumen is not, yet
Lumen is pre-launch. There is no viva or defence-preparation module. There is no user base to point at as social proof, and no published evaluation of whether it improves completion – that claim would need evidence nobody has yet. What exists is a complete, working system that one doctoral candidate has run a real dissertation on for months, and which you can open and judge in a single click.
See it before you decide anything
The fastest way to judge Lumen is to open it. The demo needs no account and no call.