In 2021, we launched the first pan-European intersectoral mentoring programme, named REBECA by EURAXESS (REsearchers BEyond aCAdemia). This initiative connected early career researchers working in academia with highly skilled professionals involved in R&D&I activities in non-academic enterprises or institutions, as well as with professionals in academic roles such as research managers.
The programme aimed to raise awareness and encourage reflection among early career researchers about their professional opportunities beyond the traditional academic research path, while also fostering engagement with non-academic stakeholders.
REBECA by EURAXESS was relaunched in 2023, with updated resources and the addition of new plug-ins to enhance the programme. This guide was subsequently revised to include the latest information.
This toolkit is designed as a practical, step-by-step guide for organizations interested in implementing similar programmes for their early career researchers. In the following sections, we share useful insights and real-life examples based on our experience, along with tools and resources. Detailed results from the REBECA by EURAXESS programme and previous editions of the REBECA mentoring initiative can be found here.
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Researchers may benefit from various types of mentoring, which is why it is important to clearly define the following aspects during the mentoring programme design phase:
Goals
One way to define the goals of an intersectoral programme is to identify the barriers that hinder researchers' career transitions and set achievable objectives to help overcome them
If you are looking for inspiration, these were the goal of REBECA by EURAXESS mentoring programme:
- Support young researchers in their reflection on their career goals, skills and professional options.
- Facilitate intergenerational, intersectoral and intercultural networking of research professionals.
- Support young researchers to get exposed to other professional careers by the hand of highly skilled professionals.
- Facilitate talent transfer from the academic sector to the private sector.
- Build stronger relationships between the academic sector and the private sector
Calendar
To determine the most effective calendar for achieving the programme’s goals, you should consider the following factors:
- Programme Duration: Longer programmes give mentoring pairs more flexibility to meet at their own pace. However, they may also lead to higher dropout rates and make monitoring more challenging.
- Suggested and Required Meetings: It’s advisable to establish a minimum number of required meetings to ensure the programme’s success, along with a recommended number of meetings to help achieve its goals. You should also allocate sufficient time for these meetings to take place. A good rule of thumb is to allow one month per meeting.
- Vacation Periods: Expect a slower pace of meetings during holiday periods, which can also complicate monitoring efforts.
We proposed a 6-month programme during which mentoring pairs were encouraged to meet at least six times.
We aimed to avoid scheduling the mentoring phase over Christmas and summer holidays, anticipating challenges with monitoring and participant engagement. However, due to project constraints, the programme was launched in mid-February 2022, and the mentoring period ran until mid-August 2022.In the 2023 edition, we followed the same approach, with the programme running from January to July.
Designing activities
In addition to mentoring pair meetings, programmes can be enriched by incorporating complementary activities.
These activities can:
- Provide opportunities to upgrade participants' skills
- Facilitate networking
- Help participants explore different professional roles
- Foster engagement and community building
When designing activities, consider what you want participants to experience or learn, and tailor the activities accordingly.
- Skills Development: Are there specific skills required or beneficial for mentoring success?
- Type of Events: Decide whether events will be workshops, webinars, panels, or informal meetups.
- Participation Requirements: Clarify whether attendance is mandatory or optional.
- Scheduling: Plan approximate dates and avoid overwhelming participants with too many events.
- Event Calendar: Create and share a calendar early in the mentoring phase. This helps to increase participation, set clear expectations, highlight mandatory events and align with other relevant activities or initiatives. A well-structured calendar also allows you to connect with ongoing events related to the mentoring programme’s theme and signpost them for participants.
- Training for mentors.
Training in mentoring skills—such as active listening and perspective taking—is highly relevant for a cross-border mentoring programme .Although such training can significantly enhance the success of the programme, attendance should remain voluntary. We follow a principle of not pressuring mentors into additional activities, as they have already made a generous and altruistic contribution by participating in individual meetings with mentees. - Training for mentees.
Training in various skills and tools can be a valuable asset for the professional development of mentees. These sessions also provide mentees with resources and topics to guide their individual meetings with mentors and help them build their own development plans. While practical topics such as non-academic CV writing generate high interest, it is often more impactful to begin with motivational and self-reflective tools that support long-term career development. - Career panels.
These are powerful, short-format events where selected mentors share their career paths or insights with all mentees. Ideally, these panels should be held in an informal setting that encourages maximum interaction and engagement. - Networking meetings.
Events that promote networking are always effective in building community and increasing participant engagement—especially in a programmes, which are primarily virtual.
B2R Matchmaking events or career fairs.
These events aim to connect company representatives with researchers in a fair-like setting. They offer companies the opportunity to present their activities and access a pool of talented researchers, while researchers can expand their networks and explore career opportunities beyond academia in the private sector.
Check the calendars of:
2021-2022 edition of REBECA by EURAXESS mentoring programme
2023-2024 edition of REBECA by EURAXESS mentoring programmeSetting of the meetings
Experience from mentoring programmes shows that in-person meetings—like any form of interpersonal interaction—can foster stronger and more successful mentoring relationships. However, this is not always feasible in cross-border or multi-institutional mentoring programmes.
All individual meetings and events in the REBECA mentoring programme were conducted virtually. Nevertheless, participants were informed about the potential benefits of in-person meetings, should conditions allow for them.
Targeted mentees
These are the key variables to take into account:
Career stage. Although it may be tempting to assume that postdoctoral researchers are more familiar with career options beyond academia than PhD candidates or recent graduates, the reality is often different. Postdocs tend to have spent more time within academic environments, frequently without professional connections to non-academic sectors. Additionally, relocating to other countries can limit their time and resources to explore opportunities outside academia.
We targeted PhD candidates and PhD holders (up to eight years after obtaining their degree). Candidates from any discipline were welcome, and women were especially encouraged to apply.
Targeted mentors
Several features should be considered when defining the profile of potential mentors:
- Experience of the mentor in non-academic sectors. Do you want strict non-academic professional or are academics collaborating with non-academic sectors also valid?
- Seniority of the non-academic sectors. Do you require mentors with strictly non-academic professional backgrounds, or are academics with experience collaborating with non-academic sectors also valid?
- Past relation with academia. Do you want your mentors to be PhD holders or not?
We chose to adopt a very open approach regarding mentor profiles. Our goal was to create a diverse network of professionals connected to research, development, and innovation. We targeted professionals from STEM, social sciences, and humanities working in industry, government, the third sector, and even academia, provided they were not in research positions or had some link to the private sector (e.g., start-ups).
Although holding a PhD or having a background in academic research was not mandatory, it was highly valued.
Size of the programme
We recommend securing a number of mentors before defining the size of the programme, even if you plan to launch a public call. This ensures the programme can move forward with a reasonable level of participation. If you have a large pool of mentors, scaling up the number of pairs may require significant resource allocation. For example, managing approximately 100 mentoring pairs over a six-month period requires around three person-months of management effort.
Our initial target was 50 mentoring pairs. However, due to the high number of mentor applications, the final number of pairs arranged was 102 in the 2021–2022 edition, based on strong matches, and 78 pairs in the 2023–2024 edition
Resources to guide and inspire mentoring conversations
It is not easy to start conversations between pairs in a mentoring programme from the scratch. It is advisable to create material to:
- to facilitate guidance during the programme,
- engagement of the pairs and
- to spark conversations during one-to one meetings.
We developed a user-friendly handbook as a key resource. This handbook covers:
- The concept and structure of the mentoring programme
- Mentoring skills, with a particular focus on intercultural communication
- How to prepare for and approach mentoring meetings
- Suggested topics relevant to career development, including referenced literature
- A career development plan template for mentees to voluntarily track their progress
- A reminder of events taking place during the mentoring phase
- How to access to post-meeting forms (see Monitoring and Evaluation section)
Check the Handbook used in the latest edition of REBECA by EURAXESS mentoring programme
Branding and programme identity
Think of a catchy name!
Even though this intersectoral mentoring programme has evolved across editions, we decided to keep the brand name and visual identity. Our experience shows that naming the programme greatly supports communication and outreach, especially when engaging professionals from sectors that are not traditionally familiar with EURAXESS.
In fact, we named REBECA by EURAXESS not only this mentoring programme, but also other activities related to support career transition of researchers, such as the community platform and matchmaking events. This has provided a strong and recognizable platform to showcase various elements of the Careers Beyond Academia initiative within EURAXESS-Hub.
Key recommendations for designing a mentoring programme
To design an effective mentoring programme, we recommend:
- Being as specific as possible when defining your goals and target group.
- Creating supporting materials and events to help mentoring pairs work toward those goals. (See Annex 1: REBECA by EURAXESS Handbook for inspiration.)
- Considering the creation of a catchy brand or name for the programme, especially if you are targeting groups that are not traditionally familiar with your organisation.
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How you attract participants to your programme is essential. If you come from an academic setting—as is the case for most EURAXESS members—recruiting mentee candidates will likely be straightforward. However, attracting mentors from non-academic sectors can be more challenging and often represents the main bottleneck for a successful mentoring programme.
Strategies to attract mentors
There are two non-exclusive strategies to attract mentors: “door-to-door” outreach and a public call. For both approaches, having promotional materials, such as a programme leaflet, is highly recommended.
You may want to reach out to local and regional companies. Whenever possible, try to engage in conversations rather than simply sending materials. There are several ways to connect with potential mentors:
- Through personal networks
- Via your alumni network
- Through public–private ecosystems of academic institutions or collaborators (e.g., spin-offs or start-up support offices)
- Via professional associations of enterprises
- Through national or European networks that support businesses, such as the European Enterprise Network
When launching a public, open recruitment campaign, social media is essential to spread the word about your programme. Make extensive use of the EURAXESS network and other academic networks that are likely to have a strong interest in intersectoral mobility and collaboration. These networks can not only help you reach potential participants, but also support the hub model approach of this edition by contributing to visibility and engagement across sectors.
Before publicly launching the programme and opening the application process, we aimed to ensure a minimum number of professionals were interested in becoming mentors. To achieve this, we leveraged our personal and institutional networks across industry, public administration, and the third sector, as well as our REBECA Alumni mentors from previous editions. We contacted them via email, phone calls, and virtual meetings, using promotional materials such as the website and leaflet to present the programme.
The existence of previous REBECA editions in Spain made this process more efficient for the current cycle.
Once we had secured sufficient mentor interest, we launched a public outreach campaign through the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology’s communication channels and social media platforms. Additionally, we invited members of the EURAXESS network to share the opportunity with their own stakeholders.
A key message throughout the campaign was that both mentors and mentees would be selected based on profile compatibility. We also emphasized the importance of achieving a balanced distribution in terms of geography, gender, and scientific disciplines.
Due to the cross-border dimension of the programme, we introduced a quota system to ensure fair participation across countries: for every one mentor, up to three mentees from the same country of residence could participate. (See "Matching Process" for more details.)
We opened the calls for mentors and mentees separately, each for a 15-day period. For the mentee call, we set a maximum of 300 applications to be evaluated on a first-come, first-served basis.
Participation Overview:
- Mentor Applications: 136, from 21 countries
- Mentee Applications: 202, from 25 countries
Gender Representation:
- Mentors: 55.1% women, 44.9% men
- Mentees (ESR applicants): 61.9% women
Disciplinary Backgrounds:
- Mentors: Most had backgrounds in Physical Sciences and Engineering (45.6%)
- Mentees: A majority came from Life Sciences (54%)
Key recommendations for attracting participants
- Secure mentors in advance, even if you plan to open a public call for participants. Use your professional and personal networks, and map the ecosystems you have access to in order to identify potential mentors.
- Prepare a leaflet and website highlighting the key aspects of the programme. These materials should be easy to distribute through your networks. See Annex 2 for the REBECA leaflet as an example, or visit the REBECA by EURAXESS section on the EURAXESS Spain portal.
- Clearly communicate the number of available places and the selection criteria to manage candidates’ expectations effectively.
- Disseminate the call as widely as possible through all relevant channels and forums.
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How to select candidates
The selection and matching phases are critical to the success of the programme and are closely linked. During these stages, organisers must decide how to pair applicants from the available pool of mentors and mentees.
To do this effectively, you need to define the requirements and qualities applicants should possess for the programme to be successful, and determine how you will collect this information during the application process.
If you plan to open a public call for mentors and mentees, it's likely you will receive more applications than expected. Therefore, before the matching stage, it is essential to establish clear evaluation criteria for selecting participants.
A good strategy may be to select a larger pool of mentees first, allowing greater flexibility in matching by choosing those whose profiles best align with the available mentors.
Key Aspects of the Selection and Matching Process
We identified two essential elements for running a successful programme:
- The quality of mentees, particularly in terms of motivation and commitment to their professional development.
- The success of the matching process, ensuring mentors and mentees are well-paired based on goals, expertise, and expectations.
The ideal mentee
We identified several factors that can lead to mentee disengagement:
- Misunderstanding what mentoring is and what to expect from a mentor
- Lack of commitment to investing sufficient time and effort in the programme
- Unwillingness or unreadiness to explore alternative career paths
While you can offer training during the programme to boost motivation and develop skills like time management and career planning, some individuals may still be resistant to change. This is why it is crucial to apply strong selection criteria beyond general eligibility, in order to avoid situations where mentees drop out and valuable mentor time is wasted
The ideal mentor
This concern is generally less of an issue with mentors. In our experience, those who apply to become mentors typically understand the role well, are senior enough to manage their time effectively, and are highly motivated.
However, it is still important to assess their mentoring experience and be prepared to provide training if needed. If you're running a cross-border mentoring programme, ensure that mentors are confident in using the programme’s common language and have at least basic intercultural communication skills or prior international experience.
The matching process
It is helpful to assign different weights to the matching criteria, as it is rarely possible to satisfy all conditions equally.
For example, you might consider the following criteria:
- Shared interests and areas of expertise between mentee and mentor
- Potential for the mentee’s development, either because the mentor has a strong professional network or is highly skilled in coaching
- Similar disciplinary background
You can prioritize these criteria by giving the most weight to shared interests and expertise, followed by development potential (via networks or coaching), and lastly by shared disciplinary background.
However, keep in mind that even if you have selected mentees who are proactive and take responsibility for their careers, they may still lack full awareness or understanding of non-academic career paths. This limited perspective can influence the way they express their interests or preferences, potentially biasing the matching process. For this reason, it’s important to interpret their expressed interests carefully.
It's essential to define your matching criteria before the application phase so you can gather the necessary information from mentors and mentees during registration.
There are several ready-to-use software tools that can help automate the matching process, using the criteria you define. This can be a worthwhile investment for larger programmes or those with rolling admissions, though it is not strictly necessary at the beginning. Manual ("human") matching, while slower, can take into account intangible factors and intuition that software may overlook.
At REBECA by EURAXESS, we designed two separate but simple and detailed registration forms—one for mentors and one for mentees. All applicants were required to complete these forms during the application process to support the selection and matching stages (see Annex 7: Registration Form for Mentees and Annex 8: Registration Form for Mentors).
Selection Process
Selection of Mentee Candidates
As outlined in the registration form, we had already planned this evaluation phase in advance. Mentee candidates were assessed based on the following criteria:
- Career awareness: We gave higher scores to candidates who submitted skill-focused CVs aimed at non-academic roles, as opposed to academic CVs (20 points).
- Career communication: Ability to explain their research in plain language and reflect on careers beyond academia (20 points).
- Motivation: Clarity and strength of their motivation to join the programme (20 points).
- Perceived barriers: Insightful reflection on challenges faced when transitioning to industry (20 points).
- Understanding of mentoring: Awareness of what mentoring involves and the skills they believed they could contribute (20 points).
- Job-seeking intent: Candidates who stated expectations of being hired by mentors were automatically excluded.
In cases where mentees had similar scores, we applied additional considerations to ensure a balance of gender, geographic origin, and disciplinary background, based on the overall application pool.
To ensure consistency, initial evaluations were done collectively by the REBECA by EURAXESS team to establish a shared reference point. Following this, each team member reviewed a portion of the applications to compile a ranked list of potential mentees.
Selection of Mentor Candidates
The evaluation of mentor applications was more flexible. Our goal was to build a broad and qualified pool of mentors to maximize effective matching.
Applications were primarily screened to exclude:
- Ineligible applicants
- Academics not connected to the non-academic sector
- Very inexperienced professionals
- Candidates who demonstrated a lack of commitment to the programme in their responses
All mentor applications were reviewed by all members of the REBECA by EURAXESS team.
Matching Phase
After preselecting mentees and confirming eligible mentors, each REBECA team member matched their assigned mentees with suitable mentors from the entire pool. The matching was based on a combination of the following criteria:
- Professional interests
- Topics to be addressed during the programme
- Career development potential (e.g. mentor’s network, support, and experience)
- Relevance of the mentee’s research to the mentor’s area of expertise
- Shared disciplinary background
- International experience
While some pairings were near “perfect matches” on paper, others had more diverse or complementary profiles. From the beginning, we made it clear to participants that the purpose of mentoring was to broaden horizons, not to provide exact matches, and encouraged them to be open to different perspectives and experiences.
Once the 102 pairs were finalized, each selected participant received an email notifying them of their match and inviting them to the virtual kick-off meeting. Introductions between mentor and mentee pairs were only made after the kick-off. This approach allowed flexibility in case of last-minute dropouts and helped increase participation in the kick-off, which is a key milestone for setting expectations (see the section Mentoring Phase for more details).
Key recommendations for selecting and matching mentoring process
- Design tailored registration forms for mentors and mentees to collect relevant information for both selection and matching. This step is essential for aligning profiles and expectations.
- Establish clear and structured selection criteria for both mentees and mentors in advance. For mentees, include motivation, awareness of non-academic careers, communication skills, and understanding of mentoring. For mentors, focus on experience, relevance to non-academic sectors, and commitment to the programme.
- Apply additional filters to ensure diversity (e.g., gender, geography, discipline) among selected participants, especially when candidates have similar scores.
- Interpret mentees’ expressed interests with care, as limited knowledge of non-academic career paths may lead to biased preferences.
- Use weighted matching criteria based on key aspects such as shared interests, areas of expertise, potential for professional growth, and international experience. Prioritize compatibility, but also embrace diversity where appropriate.
- Decide whether to use automated or manual matching, depending on the size and complexity of your programme. Manual matching may better capture qualitative factors, while automated tools can save time for large cohorts.
- Communicate clearly with selected participants before and after matching. Delay introductions until a joint kick-off meeting to accommodate any last-minute changes and align expectations from the outset.
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Once the pairs have been established, it’s time to officially launch the mentoring programme. It is essential that all participants are properly briefed on the scope of the programme, what mentoring is and is not, and the goals they are expected to work towards.
Equally important is ensuring clear communication protocols: participants should know how to stay in touch with the organisers, who to contact if something goes wrong, and what content and resources are available to them.
If you’re running an international programme, make sure to provide participants with basic intercultural communication training to foster more effective and respectful interactions across cultures.
To support a successful mentoring phase, we have identified the following key elements: