PhD - Post Doc Mentoring Scheme

The Postdocs on campus started an initiative across the Vienna BioCenter to encourage the Postdoc mentoring of PhD students. The system works as follows: Postdocs submit a short bio to create a list of volunteer Postdoc mentors. PhD students get access to this list and then can contact any postdoc that they feel might be an appropriate mentor for them. 

The idea is to encourage PhD students to seek out their own mentoring relationships with someone outside of their lab group. Whether you only meet with a student for a one-off coffee, or it turns into a regular thing, it’s entirely up to you and your mentee. Mentoring can be both scientific and non-scientific. A postdoc mentor can advise on career prospects, support the mentee with day-to-day struggles that accompany a PhD, or simply give suggestions for the best pizza in Vienna :) The mentor is however not supposed to be heavily involved in the student's science.

Whether you only meet with a postdoc for a one-off coffee, or it turns into a regular thing, it’s entirely up to you and your mentor.  Check out the list here.

Mentors and Mentee Guidelines

  • Fill out the mentor profile form (it only takes ~5 min!!): 
  • https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1XRqlJ3qzPpxc7zLqO4xQ943Wq3HIdZi0fTfmRDlBwtk/edit
  • If contacted, be willing to meet the student at least once informally (e.g ~30min over coffee)
  • The mentor can decline future meetings at their own discretion
  • The mentor can decline further mentees if they already have too many
  • The mentor will keep anything discussed in the meeting completely confidential, unless it is deemed necessary to break confidentiality in the interests of the student’s health & safety. In this case, the point of contact is Scientific Training Unit

  • Reach out to a possible mentor via email based on the list of ‘mentor profiles’
  • The student is responsible for arranging the meetings
  • Your mentor is not a supervisor, in the sense of project planning and experimental design. It is the student’s responsibility to use the mentoring relationship appropriately

We would appreciate your support for this programme by taking the time to fill in this Google form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeqdpjG4VR_hbwYOUQ7wrCg6_LvH0c7v5E7U9Eww0ciSXvIlw/viewform?usp=sf_link

If you have further questions please contact:

Zuzana Hodakova - zuzana.hodakova(at)imp.ac.at

Flavia Corsi - Flavia.corsi(at)imba.oeaw.ac.at

Federico Teloni - federico.teloni(at)imba.oeaw.ac.at