Mentoring as a Career Tool: Strategies, Networks, and Structured Peer Mentoring (GAIN26)

Mentoring plays an important role in many research careers, yet it often remains informal and unevenly distributed. Many researchers associate mentoring mainly with senior academic advisors, but effective mentoring can take many forms across disciplines, institutions, and sectors.

This workshop explores mentoring as a strategic career tool for researchers in academia and beyond. Participants will learn how to identify potential mentors, build mentoring relationships, and use formats such as mentoring programs, informal mentoring networks, and peer mentoring.

A central part of the session is a structured peer mentoring exercise, where participants work in small groups to practice a simple mentoring format they can apply in their own networks. We will also touch on structural aspects of mentoring, including survivorship bias, diversity, and power dynamics.

• Svenja Burmann, Early Career Office & Coordinator JUMP2 Future Leader Mentoring, Saarland University
• Matthew Lee Kraushar, MD, PhD, Group Leader, Max-Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics
• Prof. Dr. Jeffrey Peck, President, Friends and Sponsors of the German-American Fulbright Program

Facilitator:

• Dr. Anne Schreiter, Director, Guidance, Skills and Opportunities for Researchers e.V.

Language: English