This article reflects on the relevance of a doctoral seminar in political science on the conditions of knowledge production in academia and the preparation of practical research activities. It is based on exchanges between the professors who taught the seminar and a doctoral student who took part in it, as well as on the results of a questionnaire sent to students who took the class between 2016 and 2021. This seminar allowed a democratization of access to the norms of the discipline, a finer understanding of power relations in academia, and emotional and intellectual support in the early stages of the PhD.