EO4All Mentoring Programme

Shaping your career and finding your profession passion can be a challenging period. At this time, mentoring support can be invaluable in discussing ideas and moving past challenges, highlighting opportunities, and providing a key point of access to communities of research and practice.  

EO4All is an ITC initiative that brings together a group of Earth Observation (EO) experts with the goal of collaborating to improve gender diversity to progress Earth Observation science.  

EO4All has launched a mentoring programme through which Earth Observation learners and early career Earth Observation professionals are paired with an EO4All member with whom they meet regularly throughout the mentoring period. Mentees can be MSc students looking for PhD opportunities in the Earth Observation domain, professional life-long-learners looking for ways to gain Earth Observation expertise and increase their network, PhD students and postdocs who look for sparring partners for career choices, and junior colleagues seeking advice on education-societal impact-research directions. All mentees must have an interest in Earth Observation and gender diversity, but not have to be affiliated with ITC. 

The aim:  

The overarching aim of this programme is to support the professional development of (junior) individuals through conversations with (more) experienced EO experts on research, education and making positive societal impact. Gender diversity reflections can be part of this. 

The mentoring

• Formal mentoring period:  6 months, with an option to be extended by the agreement of both parties.
• Frequency:  Mentors and mentees should ideally meet at least three times during the mentoring period.  
• Time commitment: both the mentor and mentee must be able to commit to at least three meetings (one hour) plus preparation time. 
• One-to-one meetings: 1-hour sessions recommended, at the preference of mentor and mentee these can be virtually or face-to-face, if location allows.
• At the beginning of the mentoring process, the mentee prepares goals for the mentoring period. For tips, see the links below.
• These mentee goals are discussed at the first meeting between mentor and mentee and evaluated for feasibility. 
• Ideally, mentee-mentor take time after the first meeting to decide whether they feel comfortable to proceed with the mentoring relationship (1-2 days).  
• If one of the pair does not wish to continue, they can contact the EO4All coordinator who will then communicate the decision and seek to establish a new pairing, if desired. 
• The meetings are actively prepared by the mentee, i.e. the topics to be discussed should be prepared by the mentee. Whether this requires prior action/preparation (e.g. an email with the discussion points the day before the meeting) is agreed upon by the mentor and mentee.  
• The mentor takes a clear mentoring role. This means: the mentor, listens, helps to reflect, and facilitates the conversation. See tips below.

Tips on mentor-mentee relations:

• https://rock.geosociety.org/net/documents/gsa/careers/mentoring/how-to-be-a-good-mentor-mentee.pdf
• https://hr.un.org/sites/hr.un.org/files/Mentee-Handbook-03.pdf
• https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/11/1/e040355

Mentors:

To become a mentor, please mail to EO4ALL@utwente.nl.

Registration for mentees: