Arqus Online Mentoring Programme 2021-2022

The Arqus Online Mentoring Programme for Doctoral and Postdoctoral Researchers started in June 2021. The aim of this programme is to support the establishment of sustainable mentoring relationships between early career researchers and established researchers from the Arqus partner universities.

The Arqus European University Alliance is a cooperation between the universities of Bergen, Granada, Graz, Leipzig, Lyon ^[1], Padua, and Vilnius, which is funded by the European Commission. Arqus aspires to:

• enhance the education of critically engaged European and global citizens who are able and willing to contribute to a multicultural, multilingual and inclusive Europe which is open to the world;
• increase and improve the joint research capacity of the partner universities;
• better respond to the grand societal challenges of the 21st century in Europe and beyond.

The Arqus Action Line 6 Research Support and Early Stage Researcher Development has developed initiatives to encourage doctoral candidates and postdoctoral researchers to participate in joint initiatives and shared opportunities. One of these initiatives is the Arqus Online Mentoring Programme. The entirely online-based programme is designed for doctoral candidates and early postdocs who are interested in professional support during the transition phase from predoc to postdoc.

Mentees are matched with a mentor in the weeks after their successful application. Mentor and mentee meet for a minimum of three one-hour virtual sessions over the course of six months. To ensure a clear focus on strategic (personal) decisions and/or further career steps of interdisciplinary researchers, guiding materials have been designed. Additionally, mentees will take part in six one-and-a-half-hour training sessions to strengthen their networking skills and learn how to get the most out of a mentoring relationship. Mentors will have the opportunity to participate in a regular mentors’ lounge.

Trainer and host for both mentees and mentors is Dr Karin Grasenick, an expert who is responsible for the “High Potential Programme” of the Human Brain Project and author of a mentoring handbook.

^{[1] Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, Université Jean Moulin Lyon 3 and Université Jean Monnet at Saint-Etienne.}

You may download the guidelines for the mentoring relationship (includes templates for minutes from the session and mentoring contract).

Dates & topics for the mentee training sessions (always Tuesdays at 15:00-16:30 CET):

• June 15, 2021: Mentee welcome, getting to know peer group, basics & visions for the mentoring relationship
• October 5, 2021: Goal setting & career planning: mentoring-specific and in general
• November 9, 2021: efficient social media use for networking
• December 14, 2021: publication strategies
• January 11, 2022: management of expectations by supervisors/project leads
• February 8, 2022: evaluation

Further contents of the training sessions can be determined between the peer group and the trainer (Dr Karin Grasenick). There is a Slack channel for internal communication and materials are shared via email by the coordinators.

Mentoring lounge: There will be a kickoff call in early June. The first regular meeting will be held on October 20, 2021 4.30pm. More dates, minutes and materials from the mentors’ lounges are shared via email by the coordinators. You may download the guidelines for the mentoring relationship (includes templates for minutes from the session and mentoring contract).

Mentees and mentors receive certificates by the Arqus European University Alliance after the relationship has been formally concluded (at the latest, in February 2022). After the programme, a satisfaction survey is to be filled out.

Mentor satisfaction survey: https://survey.uni-graz.at/index.php/935835?lang=en

Mentee satisfaction survey: https://survey.uni-graz.at/index.php/652558?lang=en