Research about the wellbeing of PhD students reveals generally that they have a relatively poor thesis experience. A study found that the mental health levels of doctorat students was as low as the prison population. Depending on the country and the discipline, drop-out rates are over 50%. Research points to factors such as a heavy workload, lack of financial support, high levels of anxiety, unsatisfactory supervision, lack of interest in the thesis topic as the causes. Few studies have drawn conclusions from this knowledge to determine precisely what a “happy” doctoral student is. The aim of this poster is to identify the different vectors of doctoral students’ fulfilment and happiness through a review of the litterature. Among the contributions of this litterature review, various levers should be retained to promote a positive doctoral experience: the subject of the thesis should make sense to the doctoral student (Stubb, et al., 2012). A doctoral student who perceives that his or her work is not progressing is more likely to feel like abandoning the thesis. This thesis work should ideally be funded. Moreover, a happy doctoral student is one who is accepted and supported by the scientific community in which he evolves, and in particular his thesis supervision and research laboratory (Tinto, 1993). Moreover, the more the doctoral students feels gratitude towards his environment, the more he identifies his PhD as a rewarding period (Howells, et al., 2017).Finally, a happy doctoral student is a researcher whose life is not limited to his thesis. To sum up, this work of analysis and exploitation of the available literature is useful both for laboratories and doctoral schools wishing to identify doctoral students in difficulty, and for doctoral students who are considering the conditions that need to be met in order to complete their doctoral studies.