BACKGROUND AND AIMS

ECRs face challenges in career progression: becoming ‘stuck’ in post-doctoral roles and managing heavy workloads, meaning there are rarely opportunities to think ahead and plan in long-term ways that make transformational research/collaboration possible. This project hoped to address this using a peer-coaching model within an established peer network, in which we have identified a clear need for time focussed on career/skill development, with lack of resources limiting our ability to make this a reality.

Based on experiences of events where ECRs identify multiple goals but have little scope to action these, alongside the aforementioned need for development time, the project aimed to provide more open-ended reflexive discussion spaces, together with opportunity for focused time to explore next steps together.

This project proposed a two-day event for a small peer network of researchers within the 2022 GROW cohort. Day one would be used to create long-term career plans using action learning approach. Day two would accelerate progress towards those goals through planning practical steps and accountability milestones.

We hosted a 2 full day’s workshop in York. Each attendee presented the key aspects of their work under a strengths/challenges/future plans framework. We used discussion to collaboratively challenge and develop ideas. On the second day we developed detailed plans, set objectives, and outlined timelines for checking in and progression.

Without the support of the Incubator we would not have been able to host an in person event, and would have missed out on important in person time together that facilitated rich plans for future collaboration.

These two days were crucial in helping us align our goals, set realistic intentions, and ensure future collaboration using a peer mentoring framework.

We hope to develop our peer mentoring framework further and outline this as a publication. We see horizontal mentoring such as this as crucial for mental health early career researchers, who often lack access to more senior mentors.