How can I build up an effective network? How should I approach my role as manager? How do I get the balance between work and private life right? And where should I look for funding?

These are some of the questions that can face assistant professors, as well as their own professional work. The Service for Personnel & Organization (DPO) offers mentoring for assistant professors. This gives them the opportunity to talk about issues like these with an experienced, independent colleague.

The aim of mentoring is to support the professional and personal development of assistant professors. As well as their own professional knowledge and skills, working in an academic environment brings with it a range of other aspects. An experienced associate professor or professor can provide the assistant professor with support and coaching in all these areas.

The assistant professor (mentee) is teamed with an experienced associate professor or professor (mentor). They meet regularly to talk about topics that are relevant to the assistant professor. It’s up to the assistant professor to decide which those topics are. Involvement of both the assistant professor and the associate professor is on a voluntary basis.

As well as the personal benefits, mentoring also contributes to the smooth progression of assistant professors to higher scientific positions. In addition, experience from other universities shows that mentoring has positive effects on the following organizational aspects:

• Communication
• Leadership and management skills
• Productivity
• Employee satisfaction
• Mental resilienceInterdisciplinary collaboration and knowledge
• Retaining and recruiting talent
• Progression of talent
• Recognition of competences