WANTED – mentors for postdocs

Background

In the second half of 2025 we organized the first round of our mentoring program and received many positive responses. This is why we continue the program with a second round.

Mentors wanted

Are you or is one of your colleagues interested in joining the program as a mentor and share experiences with postdocs? Please sign up! You can send an e-mail to Ernesto Villacís Pérez (e.a.villacisperez@uva.nl, EPS Postdoc Council). Please also include a short overview of your role within the company.

Format and time-investment

The cycle of the mentoring system is envisioned to last six months, starting after you have been matched to a mentee. We will do our best to pair mentors and mentees based on area of expertise and learning goals. Once the matches have been made,  we will host a kick-off event, where we can address the expectations from mentors and mentees, as well as general guidelines and the code of conduct of the system. How and when mentors and mentees interact is up to each pair, but we suggest meeting at least three times.

Kick off meeting:

• Date: 29January
• Time: 15:00
• Location: AC de Meern

Why a mentoring system?

Working for the business world is often experienced as a ‘black box’ by academics, who find it difficult to estimate what that is actually like to do research in industry. This makes postdocs hesitant to make the transition from academia to industry. This is unfortunate, as many companies are research-oriented and there is certainly room for (and demand for) the talent that postdocs harbour. We want to link a postdoc to an employee from a company, to provide more insight into the experiences of working for a company. There is a lot of interest in this from the EPS postdocs.