Mentoring Scheme 2025

The scheme has three main aims, to:

• To bring SEB members together into mentoring pairs
• To help our members develop connections through training and networking
• To support our members to develop through mentoring and/or develop mentoring skills

The scheme runs from December 2024 to December 2025.

1. There will be a 2-hour briefing session in September or October explaining the details of the scheme which offers an opportunity to network with potential mentor matches.  You can choose one of the following dates:

• Monday 23 September 9.30-11.30 am GMT
• Friday 4 October 3.00-5.00 pm GMT

2. After the briefing sessions, you can opt to complete the scheme registration form to continue in the scheme. After completing the scheme registration form, the matching process will begin.  In matching, we seek to match mentors and mentees based on compatible topics/interests.  After this process, you will be notified about your match in December 2025.

3. After you are notified about your match, it is up to the mentee to initiate contact with their mentor and have meetings every 6 to 8 weeks until December 2025.  You will receive a starter pack in December, and then three further exercises/conversation prompts for (optional) use in your mentoring sessions will be sent to you at intervals throughout the scheme.  Please ensure that at your first one-to-one meeting you complete the Mentor agreement form in the starter pack together.  This form is confidential, to be shared between mentor and mentee only.

4. There will also be an opportunity to network with colleagues in the scheme at the SEB conference in July 2025.

5. As part of the scheme you will receive a starter pack and three further worksheets at intervals during the scheme.  You can use these to structure mentoring conversations and reflect on your progress.

5. We will be checking in during the scheme to ensure all is going well with a mid-way evaluation survey.

6. You will also be asked for feedback on the scheme after its conclusion: this will help us to improve and expand the scheme so we urge you to complete this.

7. After the scheme has finished in December 2025, you are very welcome to continue to meet with your partner and keep in contact with people from the scheme.  Once the scheme has finished, it is assumed that partnerships end unless the partners opt to stay in contact. You are also welcome to reapply for any future SEB mentoring schemes.

Partners are matched from the information supplied on the registration form, taking into account personal details, any preferences expressed, and alignment in topics people are interested to discuss.  This information is coded to match mentors and mentees. This scheme is open to a maximum of 150 applicants.  We will strive to match mentors and mentees as closely as we can, but in some cases an exact match may not be possible.

Whilst we will endeavour to make as many suitable matches as we can, we cannot guarantee that everyone applying to the scheme will be assigned a match.  Our matching takes into account a number of factors around preferences and areas of interest for mentoring and these may not necessarily align across all applicants.

The scheme is voluntary and in your own time.  The scheme is designed so you can build your mentoring around your existing commitments.  If you are unsure whether you have enough time to devote to the scheme, consider what you want to gain from the scheme.  There are several different aspects in which you can engage:

-  the scheme briefing session in September/October 2024    

-  one to one meetings with your partner for around an hour once every 6-8 weeks

- networking at the July SEB conference (voluntary)

- working through worksheets in your mentoring sessions

-  feedback on the scheme at its midpoint and conclusion 

You are not obliged to attend the networking session in July, but you should be able to make time to come to the briefing (2 hours) sessions and meet with your partner for around an hour once every 6-8 weeks (minimum 7 hours).  So in total the minimum engagement with the scheme is 9 hours between September/October 2024 and December 2025.  If you feel that you don’t have time for this, you can always reapply if and when the scheme is run again (currently the scheme is run biannually).

The topics of the sessions should be mutually agreed between the mentor and the mentee, with the mentee providing an agenda, or an indication of 1-3 topics for each meeting.  You can use your mentoring agreement to set out some key aims for the mentoring process.  These aims can then help shape the topics you address across your sessions.  The mentoring agreement also suggests that you reflect on how the mentoring is going in your sessions.  Finally, you will receive a starter pack with a worksheet at the beginning of the scheme.  This will be followed by three further worksheets at intervals throughout the scheme which you can use as tools to prompt discussion.

Not every match will work.  This is nobody’s fault, and absolutely fine within the scope of the scheme.  If you have a problem with your mentor or you don’t want to continue with your mentor, please contact Jo at [email protected].  We will endeavour to find new matches if a mentoring partnership doesn’t work, but we cannot guarantee this.  If we cannot rematch you are welcome to reapply the following year.

If you have sent one email, try again – the first email may have gone unseen.  Within this scheme it is the responsibility of the mentee to contact the mentor. 

If your mentor or mentee is not replying to emails this might indicate that something is not working within the mentoring relationship.  This does happen, no one is to blame: sometimes matchings do not workout.  The mentoring agreement asks you to consider what will happen if one partner does not make email contact with the other.  If you are uncertain and haven’t heard from your partner for a while, do get in touch with Jo at [email protected].

The mentoring aspect of the scheme is between you and your partner.  There is no penalty for missing a meeting.  It is, nevertheless, important to ensure communication is maintained.

In the mentoring agreement, it is set out that the mentee is responsible for keeping up momentum in the partnership, including keeping in touch to organise meetings and feeding back to the mentor about their learning and progress.  As part of the mentoring agreement we suggest you discuss what happens if a meeting needs to be cancelled.

The scheme features an initial two-hour briefing session, which will run through what is involved with the scheme, and setting boundaries around the mentoring relationship.

When you have your initial meeting with your partner, you should also use the mentoring agreement to agree together how the relationship will work.  This covers aspects such as confidentiality, how you will communicate with each other, how you will evaluate how the mentoring is working, agreeing what topics you will discuss, and how you will end the mentoring relationship.

There is also networking during the scheme, where you can capitalise on building connections with others and exchanging experiences.

The scheme administrators can also help with any problems or questions at [email protected].

When the scheme has finished it will be evaluated.  Once all comments and feedback are evaluated, we will look to address these in future iterations of the mentoring scheme.

To evaluate the scheme we will ask participants to complete a feedback form at the scheme’s midpoint and at its conclusion.  These will be reviewed by the organizing committee at SEB to consider what aspects to take forward in any future schemes.

The mentoring agreement sets out that a key facet of the mentoring relationship is respect for each other’s privacy.  Sensitive or difficult issues that are discussed within the mentoring sessions are confidential within those sessions.  However, it is also important that you agree together where there may be exceptions to the confidentiality rule.

Mentoring is not counselling.  Whilst counsellors have specific training, experience and qualifications, this mentoring scheme is a voluntary arrangement that does not require specific long-term training.  Counselling seeks to work through personal problems, often by going back to earlier experiences.  Mentoring believes that participants are capable of better results than they are achieving and looks forward to consider options and plans for the future.  As you discuss your mentoring agreement you will be asked to consider the boundaries around the mentoring relationship.  Mentors are not expected to help people overcome difficulties (counselling-style).  If something has been discussed, or happens, that makes you feel like your partner might need help, it is acceptable for you to say that this is not something that you feel you are able to address with the expertise you have.  You can signpost any relevant sources of help.  Some of these are listed below:

  CALM has a list of international mental health charities by country.

  Befrienders offer a helpline in many countries with a search bar to find your country.

  Togetherall where people collectively pool advice and guidance anonymously, online.

  The Wellbeing Thesis is a resource which supports PhD students in various aspects of their study.

  Mind is a charity that has excellent mental health resources and information.

  Your GP or doctor is also a good first point of contact if you have concerns about your mental health.

  If you ever fear for yours or someone else’s immediate safety call the emergency telephone number of your country or go to the Accident & Emergency Department (A&E).

  If you are based on the UK, BACP website is a good place to start if you are seeking counselling privately and/or you can self-refer to your university’s/institution’s occupational health service who will be able to link you to counsellors and resources to support your wellbeing and mental health. Many universities in the UK use EAP or Employee Assistance Programmes to support their staff.

  If you are based on the UK, and you find yourself in crisis or are supporting someone else who is, there are helplines operated by Samaritans and you can call 111 for NHS support and to be linked to your local mental health teams.

Whilst the scheme lasts for 1 year, the mentoring relationship can carry on beyond this for as long as you like.  The mentoring agreement asks you to honestly consider how the relationship will end.  If you decide to continue the relationship beyond the scheme you can use the mentoring agreement questions to define the terms of its continuation.  It is important that the mentoring is of value to both parties.

Mentoring is about sharing experience, listening, asking questions about options, possibly guiding and advising.  Support should not include mental health support or counselling, supervision, and these boundaries will be set out in the initial training session.  Mentoring is really a series of conversations to allow the mentee to come up with ideas to pursue and enact about their own development and learning.  The exact specifics about what support occurs during mentoring can be discussed when you complete the mentoring agreement.

SEB are running the scheme with support from Research Coach UK.  Research Coach UK provides professional coaching and training for researchers and academics (PhD to Professor) and consultancy services for universities and research organisations, and specialises in providing support for developing and running mentoring schemes. 

You can withdraw from the programme at any time with no consequences. If you wish to withdraw, please email: [email protected].

If either party is unhappy with the match, the partnership can be ended positively with an email.  It is customary in such an email to summarise any learning from the partnership, and to thank your mentor for their time.  You can also copy Jo ([email protected]) into the email to formally register the end of the match.

Alternatively, you may wish to inform Jo ([email protected]) who will send emails.  At the end of the programme all partnerships will automatically end unless partners agree amongst themselves to continue meeting.  The scheme will end in December 2025, so any partnerships that continue will do so outside of the scheme.