Interdisciplinary Mentoring for Researchers: Making equal space for similarities and differences

This is a Pathfinder Expert Voices post, by guest blogger Charlotte Bonner-Evans, Mentoring and Community Manager for The UKRI Future Leaders Fellows Development Network, based at Cardiff University.

I am a qualified mentor and coach, and I came into the wonderful world of mentoring through experiencing the transformational effect of an invested, challenging and championing mentor while completing a postgraduate programme in Higher Education Management a few years ago. I have since worked in the private sector, further education and higher education, managing people and projects. I now manage an award-winning, UK-wide, mentoring programme for UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Future Leaders Fellows, who are early career researchers and innovators, with mentors from a wide range of backgrounds and countries such as the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), Higher Education Institutes, Policy management, Third sector and trained coaches, among others.

The evaluation of interdisciplinary mentoring programmes has demonstrated that matching mentees with mentors outside of their disciplines can be extraordinarily beneficial to the researchers’ personal and professional development. Working with a mentor who has had a similar experience but from a different perspective provides a space to challenge a researcher’s (mentee’s) way of thinking, how they approach situations, think beyond their discipline, and develop learning that they would not otherwise be able to access in their everyday working life. Mentoring relationships offer the space for reflection and learning for both mentors and mentees, building networks and social learning opportunities. Mentoring can be transformational¹ for career development of researchers when the opportunity to work with other people they would not normally cross paths with becomes available.

Interdisciplinary mentoring is an important reflective space to appreciate commonalities and differences equally.

Mentor feedback, 2023

Why develop mentoring programmes and do they support career development?

In a world where researchers are being challenged more and more to work across disciplines and with external organisations, businesses and third parties, where can a researcher turn for support outside of their direct discipline and managerial support network?

Mentoring is considered a vital part of researcher development, that when utilised across disciplines, businesses, or continents, can support in widening networks, perspectives, understanding and appreciating differences.

Sarabipour et al. 2023

The traditional view of a mentor having to be within the same school or discipline is being disrupted to drive interdisciplinary support for researchers who are pursuing collaborative working. Long passed is the notion of a mentor being an ‘elder in a toga’. Even in the epic poem, The Odyssey, where it was believed for a long time that the word ‘mentor’ was first mentioned, different mentors appeared in different guises to provide perspective and experiences that are very different to that of the protagonist – a range of perspectives were required to help the hero succeed.

To solve a problem you’ve never encountered before, you need to collaborate with people you’ve never collaborated with before.

Giang (2022)

Understandably, many researchers find a strong affinity with their own discipline and choose mentors in their discipline for obvious reasons. This aligns with Social Identity Theory, where we understand people to be deriving part of their identity from the groups in which they belong (Atkins et al., 2020). However, facilitation of social learning opportunities outside of one’s immediate sphere, supports the growth of individuals, as well as supporting their belonging to new and different spaces (Ghosh et al. 2019).

Interdisciplinary Mentoring, as a structured supportive learning space, therefore affords:

 … mentors and mentees individual social learning opportunities that may not have been available elsewhere, providing a space for self-reflection and development of ideas, within a safe and confidential environment.

Guccione and Hutchinson 2021, p. 7

Developing interdisciplinary mentoring programmes provides social learning opportunities, support and knowledge beyond the confines of research specialisms and the opportunity to build diverse networks – all which contribute greatly to academic career development.    

The value of mentoring beyond your discipline                          

Ultimately, having a meaningful conversation with someone they trust can support a researcher in working through career and life choices, making positive decisions for the future. Yet we can all get stuck feeling that we can only mentor or be mentored within our discipline! Global challenges, and complex professional challenges, require cross-sector solutions with disciplines, industries and cultures working together. Working with a mentor, or with a mentee, who is different to you, is incredibly valuable in helping you to develop skills and practices that you may not otherwise be exposed to.

As a PI, manager, or as a mentor, it is imperative to acknowledge that our experiences and worldviews are dependent on our own reality and often differ from our mentees’. It is important to build trust and have the self-awareness to realise that what the mentee is sharing in the course of their conversation with you, is not the full context of their reality. There will no doubt be commonalities that can be shared to build rapport between you, but recognising that respectfully discussing differences is the mechanism through which both mentors and mentees are learning, is powerful:

…celebrate differences and what we can learn from others who look at things from a different standpoint and perspective.

Rosinski, 2010

My advice to researchers is that, when choosing a mentor to work with outside of your discipline, think about two objectives you would like to work towards that draw on their experience. Is it working on your confidence to challenge senior leaders? Or perhaps better people management? Navigating progression whilst becoming a parent? Or how to work with the media, third sector or schools? Having a clear idea of what you want to gain from the relationship can benefit the development of the relationship and improve the match you make with a mentor.

As a PI managing researchers or as a senior academic interested in doing some mentoring, consider what type of mentoring you would be offering? Is it experiential advice on career progression in your discipline/profession? Support with navigating a career with caring responsibilities? Network building? A space to support mentees who are exploring workplace stress and feelings of burnout? Interdisciplinary mentoring can use strategies common in your field, to support the development of a researcher that goes beyond discipline-bound guidance and information sharing.

Reflection for career development

Mentoring provides a space for reflective practice, in which the mentee can explore their experiences, career roadblocks and set out protected time for planning with a mentor. When working with a mentor from a different sector, industry or discipline, the opportunities to reflect and obtain a different perspective from each other is boundless, and the added bonus is that building connections in new areas also aid our personal development journeys. Through engaging with new people, reflecting and learning from our similarities, and differences, we are not only developing ourselves and those we work with, we are ‘opening doors’, ‘throwing the ladder down’, ‘breaking the glass ceiling’ ‘lighting the way’* for those who are coming after us. Our cultural legacy in academia will be to create, for future generations, an improved learning experience, a wider understanding of others, reduced isolation, and reflective learning opportunities for growth, all within a global workspace.

* – choose your favourite management cliché and delete as appropriate  

1. Feedback from mentees from the 2021/2022 Future Leaders Fellows Development Networks’ Leadership Mentoring programme. ↩︎