Goal

Define an effective career path and provide scientific, technical and social support for junior faculties recently recruited into the Division of Neuroscience or already at OSR and recently promoted group leaders.

 

Meeting frequencies and structure

The meeting frequencies should be determined between mentors and junior faculties, but should be adequate to provide the required support. It is important to dedicate enough time to each meeting and to cultivate trust and confidence between mentors and mentees. An effective mentorship should lead to a progressive complete mentee’s independence.

Mentors should be willing to

• Support junior faculty
• Provide guidance in achieving their goals whether academic or scientific (setting up of short and long term career goals, discussing scientific progress, initiating and managing internal and external collaborations)
• Advice on workbalance issues
• Help junior faculty to navigate through OSR administrative complexities (grants deadline/submissions; relationship with Research Financial Office, HR department, Office of Biotechnology Transfer)

Effective Mentors should:

• Have good relationship and communication skills
• Be experienced with Divisional and OSR organization
• Address special circumstances related to gender, language, or disability
• Be willing to invest time and effort in mentoring
• Be appreciative and tolerant of individual differences in style and approach
• Share personal experience
• Be committed to reviewing junior faculty’s work
• Maintain confidentiality
• Provide constructive feedbacks

Possible meeting topics

• Time management, among training/mentoring lab members, research, administration and institutional activities.
• Professional responsibilities. Enlist your main responsibilities and whether you expect changes in the next 6 months
• Professional goals. Short-term (1 year) goals (scientific/academic) and strategies to achieve them. Expected outcomes and how to monitor accomplishments
• Professional goals. Long-term (3-5 years) goals (scientific/academic) and strategies to achieve them. Expected outcomes and how to monitor accomplishments.
• Scientific collaborations. Success and failure in setting up intra and extramural collaborations
• Recruiting new lab members. Strategies to overcome difficulties.
• Mentoring lab members and building trust. Strategies to overcome difficulties.
• Discussing and implementing responsible conduct of research.
• How to delegate in the lab and create a trusted relationship
• Criteria for research assessment and career progression. Establishing goals to achieve the next career step.
• Discussing and planning of research outputs (peer review publications and attendance to international meetings.
• Discussing authorship etiquette.