Mentoring

In every program cycle up to twelve mentees from different schools at Osnabrück University are accepted into the mentoring programs. Admission is based on a two-stage application process. This includes a written application and a personal interview with the admission committee, which is made up of the program management and a member of the ZePrOs' scientific advisory board. The admission committee decides on admission to the program based on the needs, motivation and potential of the applicants and taking into account the group composition. Applicants who cannot be considered in the current round will alternatively receive a needs-based consultation offer or will be considered in the following program cycle. A fee is charged for participation in the program. The fee can be paid in installments. Further information can be found in the texts on the individual programs.

The mentoring programs of the PhD/Postdoc Career Center (ZePrOs) are a central component of academic qualification at Osnabrück University. They aim to support qualified academics in early career phases in the development of their individual career paths. At the same time, they are intended to contribute to strengthening equal opportunities in the academic system.

The mentoring programs for female doctoral and postdoctoral researchers at Osnabrück University were initiated back in 2012 against the background that women are still significantly underrepresented in leadership positions within and outside the academic system despite their excellent qualifications and high motivation. This phenomenon, known as the "leaky pipeline", means that universities are still losing considerable scientific potential. While women accounted for 45% of doctorates in 2020, only 26% of professorships in Germany were held by women (see Joint Science Conference (GWK) 2022). A similar picture emerges in non-scientific areas when looking at the proportion of women in management positions. The average proportion of women in management positions in 2022 was around 30% (data from the Federal Statistical Office).
The central aim of the programs is therefore to counteract the steady decline in the proportion of women with increasing qualification levels in science and the underrepresentation of women in management positions. Against this backdrop, both mentoring programs were open exclusively to female participants until 2019.

As part of Osnabrück University's equality-oriented and equal opportunity personnel development, the objectives of the ZePrOs' mentoring programs were expanded in 2019 to include another aspect of equal opportunities. In addition to gender, the diversity feature "educational background" was integrated into the program concept. This was ZePrOs' response to the results of studies that show increasing social selectivity in the academic system. For example, scientists with a non-academic background are strongly underrepresented at all academic qualification levels and at professorship level. Even outside the academic system, it can be seen that social background plays a central role in the appointment of doctoral graduates to leadership positions and also leads to inequalities here (Falk - Küpper 2013).

Against this background, ZePrOs offers two target group-specific mentoring programs on an alternating basis, which, in addition to the goal of individual career support for female doctoral candidates and postdocs, also focus on strengthening equal opportunities between the genders within the academic system and reducing inequalities depending on educational background. These goals are implemented differently in the two programs. The mentoring program developed for the doctoral phase is still open exclusively to female doctoral candidates. The program for the postdoc phase has been open to all postdoc researchers at Osnabrück University since 2021.

Nationwide studies confirm the effectiveness and individual benefits of mentoring programs for academics in qualification phases (see Briedis et al. 2013, Krempkow et al. 2016, Höppel 2016), which are now used at over 100 universities and other institutions of higher eduation and have established themselves as important components of academic qualification. The programs for academics in qualification phases at Osnabrück University have also proven to be extremely successful instruments for supporting career development, as the accompanying evaluations in the course of Quality Assurance also prove. Since 2012, over 120 mentees have successfully completed the modular programs in ten rounds and worked with their mentors on career-specific topics.

Literature:

• Briedis, Kolja, Steffen Jaksztat, Julia Schneider, Anke Schwarzer, Mathias Winde (2013): Personalentwicklung für den wissenschaftlichen Nachwuchs, Edition Stifterverband. Essen,  www.dzhw.eu/pdf/22/projektbericht_personalentwicklung.pdf (03.09.2024).
• Falk, Susanne, Küpper, Hans-Ulrich, Does a doctorate improve the career prospects of university graduates? Beiträge zur Hochschulforschung - Themenheft "Berufserfolg von Akademikern" Heft 1, 2013,  https://www.bzh.bayern.de/fileadmin/news_import/1-2013-Falk-Kuepper.pdf (03.09.2024).
• GWK Social Equity in Science and Research, 26th update of the data material (2020/2021) on women in universities and non-university research institutions, 2022.
• Höppel, Dagmar (2016): Upwind with mentoring. Effectiveness of mentoring projects for the career advancement of women in science. Schriften zur interdisziplinären Frauen- und Geschlechterforschung, vol. 11. Nomos.
• Krempkow, Rene, Thorben Sembritzki, Ramona Schürmann, Mathias Winde (2016): Personnel development for early career researchers. Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft e. V.,  www.stifterverband.org/akademische-personalentwicklung (03.09.2024).

The mentoring programs offer opportunities and benefits for everyone involved...

Opportunities for mentees:

• Trusting exchange on planning and shaping the next professional steps and personal development
• Mutual support and encouragement from the mentee group
• Strengthening of career-relevant skills
• Information about informal rules of the game within the academic system
• Establishment and expansion of professional networks

Opportunities for mentors:

• Active involvement in the promotion of young academics
• Expansion of interdisciplinary networks
• Reflection on their own career path and experiences
• New impetus and ideas for their own work

Benefits for the university

• Quality improvement in the promotion of academics in early career phases
• Advantages in the competition for academics in early career phases through goal-oriented and needs-based support
• Contribution to equality and diversity-oriented academic culture by promoting equal opportunities
• Creation of synergies through networking (e.g. new research collaborations on interdisciplinary issues)

One-to-one mentoring can be defined as a supportive relationship between an experienced professional (mentor) and a person in the early career phase with leadership potential (mentee). The mentoring relationship is about the individual career and personal development of the mentee. Mentoring is a form of informal learning in which experiences and knowledge are exchanged between people at different stages of development and hierarchical levels.

While mentoring programs have long been established in business and politics, they have become increasingly widespread at universities since the 1990s and have proven themselves as instruments for the effective and targeted promotion of academics in early career phases and equal opportunities.

Peer mentoring describes the exchange of experience and mutual support in a group of people at the same qualification level who come together regularly for structured work meetings.