The course of an academic career is set early. On April 14 a new mentoring programme especially for women will start on Campus Bahrenfeld. The aim is to reach women in natural sciences who see their career prospects in this field – so to hold female scientists within science.
„Mentoring for Women in Natural Sciences” is a joint programme of CUI, DESY, the collaborative research centers 676 and 925 as well as the PIER Helmholtz graduate school. It addresses female PhD students and Postdocs of the involved institutions and will give them the chance to take part in intensive talks with an experienced female mentor as well as to join networking-events and workshops over a period of twelve months. “We are very happy to be able to offer a mentoring programme to female scientists in cutting-edge research that supports the participants in an optimal way on their individual career paths,” says Marie Lutz, equal opportunity officer at CUI, who is leading the project together with Sylvie Faverot-Spengler, equal commissioner at DESY.
Left to right: Equal opportunity officer Marie Lutz (CUI) and commissioner Sylvie Faverot-Spengler (DESY) will be supported during the first phase by Friederike Eickhoff from the Expertinnen-Beratungsnetz/Mentoring of Universität Hamburg. Credit: Marta Mayer, DESY
The pilot phase provides four to five dates where the participants get into a conversation with an individually selected female mentor to receive informal knowledge about their career and career strategies within science. To guarantee the most suitable mentor for the mentee, the project leaders are supported by the Expertinnen-Beratungsnetz/Mentoring of the Universität Hamburg.
“What is exceptional about the mentoring programme is the cooperation between the partners that are located on Campus Bahrenfeld. We pool our competences in “womanpower” thus enabling an equal opportunity measure across institutions addressing and connecting women from different research institutions,” stresses Faverot-Spengler. The project is supported by the MIN faculty of Universität Hamburg. In case of a positive evaluation of the first phase of the programme, more partners might be included.
Mentoring is an established process-oriented method where a person (mentor) supports and advises someone with less experience (mentee), whereby advice is based on personal experience. Career options or current professional challenges can be discussed and next career steps can be planned.
Applications should be submitted until March 30 2015! More information: http://mentoring.desy.de. Contact: mentoring@desy.de. Mentoring is also possible in English.