SCI Mentoring Programme Update September 2016

In July we brought you news about the development of the SCI Mentoring Programme* - a new benefit for SCI Members which is being launched this year. This new Member Benefit will be a true reflection of SCI’s unique strength as a multidisciplinary and all-inclusive Society. The partnerships made through the scheme will demonstrate SCI’s broad membership and will be both multi-industry and multi-science in nature, whilst enabling connections to be forged over common themes and issues. The Programme will also offer a platform for participants (both Mentors and Mentees) to make themselves known to the SCI community, opening up other channels of communication and enhancing networking skills.

Since our previous announcement, we have been working hard with both our mentoring consultant, Karen Parker, and the SCI Mentoring Matching Panel, led by Professor Jenny Mordue of SCI’s Early Careers Committee, to deliver training and to facilitate mentor/mentee matches. With a strong background in Human Resources, Karen Parker has worked with many household names such as Christie’s, Thomas Cook and Credit Suisse. In the past she has helped numerous organisations to set up, and refine, their mentoring schemes. She has a wealth of experience in this field and her expertise and knowledge has proved invaluable to us as we move forward with this project.

Following on from the Mentor training in June, the first of the mentee training sessions was held on 19 August via webinar, allowing the mentees to complete the training from their home or office. Karen Parker delivered the training to six of our pilot scheme mentees and included similar topics to those covered in the mentor training session, with special emphasis on making a personal roadmap, mentoring from a distance and avoiding potential pitfalls. We will be arranging a further training webinar for any mentees who were unable to join the previous session in the near future.

Photo: Karen Parker

In early September, the SCI Mentoring Matching Panel (a small team made up of representatives from the SCI Executive and the Early Careers Committee) met to discuss initial mentor/mentee pairings. Matches were carefully considered by extracting data provided from the previously submitted Mentor/Mentee questionnaires using a computerised scoring process. Each pair was then closely examined for suitability. The next step in the process is for the Mentoring Matching Panel to agree initial partnerships and confirmed matches will be communicated to participants. We look forward to monitoring their progress over the coming months and seeing how they get on. Please continue to keep an eye out on the SCI website for news on how the scheme is progressing.

*The SCI Mentoring Programme is currently operating under a pilot scheme and is by invitation only. If you are interested in taking part once the full programme is in operation, please email mentoring@soci.org.

Related Links:

• SCI Membership
• SCI Early Career Support