Photo: Lego launched shortly a set with female scientists. See @LegoAcademics for realistic situations.
At the level of the top academic jobs in Wageningen UR you see relatively few women. Although the male-female ratio among graduates is roughly equal, you find steadily fewer women the higher up the career ladder you look. The proportion of women professors is not even 10 percent. The gender policy action plan of November 2013 aims to do something about this, and one of the tools is a mentor pro-gramme.
For the programme, Corporate Human Resources (HR) seeks women researchers who are still in the early stages of their careers. HR will link them up with an established scientist, male or female. Not all researchers are suitable candidates for the role. ‘Mentors must have adequate social skills,’ says Kristina Raab, project manager at Corporate Human Resources. ‘And it needs to click between them too.’ In order to guarantee the quality of the coaching, all the mentors will receive training.
Raab thinks the benefits will spread beyond the young researchers. After all, the mentors will hone their coaching skills and make contacts across disciplines. About 30 mentors have already signed up, but she is hoping for even more. Interested academics can fill in a registration form on the intranet and send it to kristina.raab@wur.nl.