24 August, 2022
There’s never been an easier time for researchers to cross between academia and industry (and back again), with the explosion of recent biotech start-ups supported by record investment funding as well as the strong growth of diverse biotech, biomed and pharma companies. The great news is that often the same scientific skill sets are required across both sectors allowing researchers to readily move between industry and academia during their career.
However, as the industry sector can be a very different working environment to academia, there is real value in supporting scientists as they explore different career paths, especially in building awareness of sector-specific expectations and culture. For instance, while each company will tend to have its own unique ethos, all will share a similar goal-orientated environment and often a culture focused towards designing the ‘killer-experiment’ to enable decisions on whether to proceed or not with testing that hypothesis. 51 deemed unproductive is rapidly brought to a close.
An opportunity to facilitate conversations that provide exactly this type of career support was explored on the Babraham 51 Campus this year, with the pilot of the Babraham 51 Campus Mentorship Scheme, organised by the KEC team at the Babraham Institute. This scheme supported 17 Institute researchers in identifying and achieving career goals in science industry sectors, in developing and maintaining a broader perspective on career options and opportunities, and to recognise any gaps in their knowledge and provide networking opportunities to help fill them.
The Babraham 51 Campus provides an exceptional environment in which to enable cross-organisational mentoring opportunities. Babraham 51 Campus Ltd and the Babraham Institute have long worked together towards their commitment of enhancing and supporting early career scientists, encouraging fluidity of movement of scientific and entrepreneurial talent and skills both on Campus and within the wider cluster ().
The creation of this mentoring initiative, suggested and championed by the Chief of Staff at Campus company PhoreMost, Dr Charli Batley, is evidence of this supportive environment. Staff at both PhoreMost and Cancer 51 UK welcomed this pilot, offering a fantastic range of industry scientists (senior computational scientist, principal scientists and team leaders) as Campus mentors for the Institute students and postdoctoral researchers eager to explore a range of non-academic career opportunities.
After careful matching of interests and experience, considering the needs and interests highlighted by the mentees and the professional background and affiliation of the mentors, the mentoring partnerships developed over a period of ten weeks. Conversations took place either face-to-face or online, with a frequency and format agreed between the mentor/mentee pair to ensure conversations fitted in well with other work commitments. Time was given between meetings for reflection and exploration, allowing the mentee to undertake actions suggested by the mentor and for the mentor to research queries raised by the mentee.
“I was matched with a very helpful and friendly mentor, which was great. The email check-ins were just frequent enough to give structure to the mentorship period without dictating too much.”
Participant Mentee
While the diverse benefits for mentees are clear, mentors also gain significantly from participating in mentorship activities, not only getting the satisfaction from connecting with early-career researchers to help with a potential future transition to industry, but also through developing interpersonal, staff management and leadership skills, as well as opening up networking and recruitment opportunities.
Many mentors on the pilot scheme had not been mentored themselves or received formal training to be mentors, therefore training was provided by the Babraham Institute’s Royal Society Entrepreneur in Residence Dr Danuta Mossakowska and the Institute’s HR team. This training was key in helping mentors to establish boundaries for these informal one-to-one conversations, appreciating the commitments that mentors and mentees have towards their relationship, as well as developing listening and coaching skills to build confidence and skill sets.
“I was hoping to be rewarded by helping a younger PhD or PostDoc in finding their own career path. By trying to listen to them and understanding their doubts and questions and helping them to find their own answers, I wanted them to feel empowered, smart, and strong.”
Commercial Mentor
The positive feedback this pilot received from both mentors and mentees means the Babraham Institute is keen to establish more Campus mentorship opportunities in future, enabling valuable conversations across organisations to enhance and develop the careers of all Campus research staff and students.
“This is a great initiative, and I was glad to participate in fostering additional interactions between academic and industrial groups on campus.”
“I was hoping to get a clearer sense of what it’s like to work in research outside of an academic context, and to learn about the application and interviewing process for these jobs. [my mentor] was incredibly helpful and provided lots of useful insights and advice. She answered any questions I had, and actively sought out more helpful information for me. I certainly got what I was hoping out of this scheme.”
Please get in touch (emailing kec@babraham.ac.uk) if you are on the Babraham 51 Campus, and would like to get involved in a future round of mentorship discussions!
24 August 2022