Mentoring for early career scientists

You can apply for the general mentoring offer at any time. Please send a short letter of application and motivation with information on your current career status and possible career goals, your expectations of mentoring, and your own motivation and achievements for mentoring. Please also list 2 possible mentors, ideally not from your institute. 

Send the letter of application by e-mail with the subject Mentoring to: mailto:team-early-career(at)tu-braunschweig.de

On the following page, after log in, you will find the profiles of the professors who are currently available for mentoring. When applying for mentoring, please indicate at least 2 people you can imagine as mentors.

List of mentors

The programme management contacts the desired mentors and, after approval, establishes contact between mentee and mentor. The first meeting should be coordinated by the mentee with the potential mentor and serves to get to know each other. The mentee and mentor should decide on further cooperation at the first meeting. 

The mentoring offer consciously relies on the self-responsibility of the mentees and mentors and on the mentees' and mentors' freedom to shape the mentoring. This applies to both the duration of the mentoring relationship and the frequency as well as the content and structure of the meetings. In principle, a duration of at least 1 year and a regular frequency of exchange are recommended. Design the meetings according to your respective needs, but also create a certain commitment. Good preparation of the meetings by the mentees should be a matter of course. You can find a small guideline for structuring the conversation under the tab "Conversation guideline".

Coaching for mentees can be a good supplement. Coaching offers can be found in the Postdoc Programme and the Prof. Programme.

Usually, mentoring is terminated when, for example, goals set at the beginning have been achieved or a duration of the mentoring has been agreed upon in advance. 

Please actively shape the end of mentoring with a final meeting, draw a conclusion of the time spent together, and give final feedback. Both mentor and mentee have invested time in the mentoring, and ideally you have both benefited from the exchange. Therefore, a thank you at the end can also be an important gesture.

We ask the mentee and mentor to inform the programme management of the end by email to: team-early-career(at)tu-braunschweig.de and to participate in a short survey.

Under the link you will find a short guide with suggestions on how to organise the mentoring meetings.  You can also download the concept of the mentoring offer here.

Conversation guidelines

Short concept mentoring

Sometimes "it just doesn't fit" and conflicts can also occur in mentoring. If these cannot be resolved in tandem, the programme management is available to all participants for counselling. Ending a mentoring relationship can be one of many solutions that are not synonymous with failure. We are happy to advise you confidentially.