Mentoring
The Cluster of Excellence’s mentoring programme has two goals. First, to give researchers in the early stages of their academic career the best possible support and to prepare them for the demands of a university career. Second, to work towards equality for all researchers and to reduce discrimination in academia and society as a whole. For this reason, the mentoring programme focuses in particular on underrepresented groups or groups at risk of discrimination.
Doctoral students in the Cluster of Excellence’s Graduate School participate in the mentoring programme as part of the curriculum. The Early Career Support team organizes small interdisciplinary groups where students can meet and discuss their projects. Students can choose their mentor themselves for one-to-one mentoring. However, the mentor cannot be someone with whom the student has a relationship of dependence, such as his or her doctoral supervisor. The mentoring programme is also open to postdocs.
The Cluster of Excellence has guidelines with further information for mentoring. The mentor and doctoral student are expected to produce a written agreement detailing the aims of the mentoring process and how it will function in practice. Mentors outside the University of Münster receive an allowance covering any expenses incurred.
Since mentoring seeks to address equality issues, there is a focus on the following four aspects and their intersectionality:
- Mentoring supports women in their career planning.
- The programme offers special support for “first-generation academics”, i.e. doctoral students from a non-academic background.
- Mentoring supports people with a migration background with issues arising from their specific situation and the difficulties or experiences of discrimination linked to this.
- Mentoring offers support and opportunities for dialogue for people who consider themselves to belong to a sexual minority.
For further information, please contact: