Most PhD candidates will pursue their careers outside academic research.
Is your institution willing to support them in their career path?
How about offering a mentoring programme with professionals outside academia?
During 2019, 5 partners of the project EURAXESS TOP IV “Open EURAXESS” (H2020 GA nº 786133) run the REBECA (REseachers Beyond aCAdemia) mentoring programme.
GOALS
This was a pilot where we put in touch early stage researchers with highly skilled professionals somehow related to R&D&I, but not doing research in academia, with the aim of:
- Supporting young researchers in their reflection about their career goals by putting them in touch with profiles they usually don´t have access to.
- Facilitating intergenerational and intersectoral networking of science professionals (which is much wider than research professionals).
- Fostering the self-reflection of researchers about skills already acquired, their applicability beyond research and those needed to be developed.
PARTICIPANTS
STEM, social sciences or humanities professionals working in industry, government, third sector and even academia, but not in research positions or having some kind link with the private sector (e.g., start-ups). Some background knowledge on academic research was acknowledged but not compulsory for the mentors.
PhD candidates or researchers having recently received a PhD (they may be early postdocs or be in between jobs at the moment of application) that somehow felt they did not have enough knowledge about their career options beyond academia.
Candidates from any discipline were welcome and women were especially encouraged to apply.
In total 67 pairs were established
REBECA 2019 CALENDAR
REBECA 2019 RESULTS
Although REBECA was implemented in a coordinated way by all the EURAXESS partners, each of them managed their pairs in slightly different ways. The following results reflect the feedback from the 46 pairs managed by the programme leader, FECYT (EURAXESS Spain):
REBECA TOOLKIT
The pilot implementation was used to develop:
- The REBECA Toolkit explaining the design, implementation, management and evaluation of the programme. rebeca_toolkit_vf.pdf
- The REBECA resources developed (annexes of the toolkit), including the programme leaflet, handbook, registration forms, evaluation survey, etc. rebeca_toolkit_resources.zip
These elements are expected to be useful for any organization willing to develop and implement an intersectoral mentoring programme for early stage researchers as part of their career development services.
REBECA 2020
Due to the succes of the pilot, FECYT will be implementing a new edition in 2020. You can find all the information, including expected deadlines:
Acknowledgements:
EURAXESS Spain would like to thank the following organizations for sharing their knowledge and expertise in mentoring during the planning of REBECA
