Transdisciplinary mentoring as a mechanism in the development of networked research collaboration

The aim of the research project is to multi-methodically investigate the possibilities of transdisciplinary mentoring as a mechanism to development of cooperation in a translational cancer research network. The goal of the mentoring program  piloted at the FICAN West is to promote the conditions for cooperation at both the individual and network level. The developed mentoring program is planned to become a permanent operating model to develop the network’s collaborative culture. The project will also develop metrics for monitoring network cooperation. The research project contributes both information and tools to develop cooperation in expert networks.

Mentoring is a voluntary activity where working experts share their experiences and support each other in thinking about working life and professional development. Mentoring is often considered as an activity between a mentor and an actor, where the mentor brings his/her experience and skills to support the actor. In the FICAN West mentoring program, we use peer mentoring, which is based on an equal interaction relationship, where the mentor pair shares knowledge and experiences from work reciprocally. The goal is to support learning at work and strengthen well-being at work. For our mentoring program it is essential that one of the pairs comes from a clinical and the other from a basic research group. The goal of this transdisciplinary mentoring is to get tacit knowledge forwarded and used, to develop research work practices and to make different work cultures familiar.