Joint ACCENT/ENSEMBLES Mentoring Programme
The ENSEMBLES management board has endorsed the proposal from the Gender Action Committee to introduce a mentoring scheme and has agreed that this should be implemented by joining up with the existing ACCENT Mentoring Programme. It is proposed to launch the joint scheme during the General Assembly in Prague, November 2007.
Information about the ACCENT Mentoring Programme which was launched in July 2007, including some useful definitions of the aims and scope, are available here.
Further information about mentoring is available from these UK sites:
which provide this fairly broad definition of mentoring:
"Mentoring is to support and encourage people to manage their own learning in order that they may maximise their potential, develop their skills, improve their performance and become the person they want to be." Eric Parsloe, The Oxford School of Coaching & Mentoring
All early- to mid-career (i.e., up to about 10 years after PhD) researchers involved in ENSEMBLES are invited to consider whether they would like to become a Mentee. More experienced ENSEMBLES researchers are invited to consider becoming a Mentor. Both men and women are welcome as both Mentees and Mentors.
It is proposed that the first ENSEMBLES Mentor-Mentee pairings should run for a year, and then the scheme will be reviewed (ensuring confidentiality wherever appropriate). Since the pairs will not be based in the same institution, it is expected that most interaction will take place by email and (if both parties agree) by telephone or internet, with face-to-face meetings during ENSEMBLES and other meetings which both happen to be attending. We recommend that Mentor-Mentee contact should be on a monthly basis (or as agreed between each Mentor-Mentee pair). Unfortunately, ENSEMBLES does not have any travel money available specifically for mentoring.
At the start of the scheme, both Mentors and Mentees will be offered an introduction, followed by a Mentor-Mentee session for each pair to discuss and agree on the objectives to be achieved and nature of contact, and to sign a small standard contract on this. Any issues that the Mentee wishes to tackle with the Mentor are confidential between the two.
The joint ACCENT/ENSEMBLES Mentoring Programme will be administered by the ENSEMBLES Gender Action Committee together with the ENSEMBLES Director and Evi Schuepbach (who initiated the ACCENT Mentoring Programme and will provide training on behalf of ACCENT).
The launch event was held in Prague on 12 November 2007 (see presentation on Mentor Training). Please see the attached document for information and to express your interest in participating in the scheme (by 5 November).
Clare Goodess, Evi Schuepbach and Sari Kovats