plan m - Mentoring in Science

Competently Shaping a Scientific Career

The "plan m – Mentoring in Science" program offers female* doctoral and post-doctoral researchers the opportunity to plan the next steps of their career. In academia, an excellent qualification alone is usually not enough to gain a foothold successfully. Informal support relationships play a crucial role in providing access to relevant networks and resources. Many female* early career researchers still do not get this kind of informal personal support. They have to put a lot of effort into their involvement in the scientific community. This is where plan m mentoring comes in. It offers a program to compensate for the lack of informal support and thus contributes to more equal opportunities in academia.

As part of the mentoring program, participants work together with mentors, trainers and in the mentee group. They will get to know the key areas of academic career management and develop important action strategies. This includes dealing with structural hurdles that marginalized groups of people experience in academia, in which white male able-bodied scientists still tend to be favored. Therefore, a key focus of the program is on recognizing, strengthening and making visible various realities of life within the scientific community. We do not regard gender-based discrimination separately from other dimensions of discrimination such as racism, homophobia, ableism, classism. We have designed the program accordingly with an intersectional perspective on science.

The Equal Opportunities Office offers the plan m mentoring program throughout the university every second year alternating for researchers from the social sciences and the humanities or for scientists from the STEM-faculties.

The program is offered in German language. Persons who are able to follow the workshops in German and are interested in practicing their German skills throughout their participation but sometimes feel more comfortable to discuss their own ideas in English are welcome to contact the program director Dr. Lisa Spanka to clarify the possibilities of participation.

For further information on the plan m-program go to the German website.

For information on a program offered in English language, see the website of navigare – Career Coaching for International Women in Science.