The eLife ECR community currently has a survey open, until June 1st, with the goal of Assessing the quality of mentorship in research environments.

 

They are looking for responses from around the world, from the perspective of early-career researchers. They have surveys for pre-independence (i.e. graduate and postdoc) and junior group leaders/scientists/faculty. The 5-7 minute surveys ask whether about mentoring they receive from those in later career stages.

In their own words:

“We aim to surface what mentees believe is most important for a positive mentoring experience and to identify common gaps in skills or resources that can be addressed. We also hope that the findings will help us understand the factors that negatively impact the mentee-mentor relationships in research environments. The results will serve as a basis to offer recommendations for maximizing the benefits of mentoring in academia.”

 

As part of our effort to create a greater focus on mentoring in departments, we are of course very keen to see their findings and how they can inform our work, so please complete the survey and share it with your colleagues!

 

Don’t forget – Future of Research is organizing a meeting focused on mentorship – registration closes May 14th for the Chicago meeting:

Mentoring Future Scientists

Lack of prioritization of mentoring practices is partly responsible for preventing ECRs from reaching their fullest potential as the next generation of leaders in STEM. To cultivate a productive training environment, those who are given training responsibilities should also be trained, supported and evaluated by institutions to provide competent and appropriate mentoring to the next generation.

 

To ensure mentoring is an institutional priority, we are developing a set of departmental mentoring climate guidelines. With support from experts and leaders in the field of mentoring, we will apply the available evidence-based research on mentor/mentee competency training, the practical expertise of departmental leaders, and the experience of early career researchers, to develop a set of guidelines across various domains with three excellence tiers: bronze, silver, and gold, to be used as an assessment tool by departmental leaders wishing to commit to actionable departmental improvement.

 

But we need help. In Chicago on June 14th, 2019, we are organizing a meeting to plan how to achieve our goal of placing exceptional mentoring at the top of institutional priorities and incentives. We are asking for input and help in having as wide a discussion as possible. We are looking for input from graduate students, postdocs and junior faculty.

 

To register, either sign up:

  • here (if you want to make a donation to help with costs);

 

We hope to see you there!

Please feel free to contact info@futureofresearch.org for more information.