Mentoring and sponsorship

Dark Arts Course

Kenny Baillie

Pandemic Science Hub, University of Edinburgh

Mentorship

Guidance on:

• Strategy
• Impact
• Welfare

Sponsorship

Provision of:

• Resources
• Advocacy
• Protection

• Both are a two-way street…

Choosing sponsors

Power

• Need to have the power to give you what you need
• Must have resources and influence
• You need to get them interested in you

Choose the most powerful sponsor you can get to give you the time of day.

Choosing mentors

Who?

Choosing mentors

Never underestimate the ongoing need for mentorship, up to retirement

Steve Webb

Choosing mentors

• Integrity

• Strategic thinkers

• People who know how to navigate your world

• Highly capable/successful people (you want to emulate their success)

• You don’t always have to do what they tell you.

• Think creatively about mentorship

  • outside your field/interest
  • youth
  • peers

Choosing mentors

Find the person at your institution who publishes most in Nature, and go work for them.

Derek Angus

Being a mentor

• Integrity

• Intellectual generosity
• Humility

What makes a bad mentor?

Examples of shit advice

Drop the genomics and go work on stem cells and put them into lungs

anon

Number of mentors/sponsors

• limitation is only practical
• doesn’t even matter if they hate each other

Mentorship

Intense mentorship (e.g. PhD supervisor)

• weekly/daily/hourly
• often focus on tactics
• convergence of interests

Sparse mentorship

• focus on strategy
• sparse relationships don’t have time for tactics

Institutional sponsorship

Never expect loyalty from an institution

“Understanding academic medical centers: Simone’s Maxims” J V Simone [PMID: 10499593]

The loyalty watershed

	Great Group leader	Great Institute lead
Definition of success	Good science, papers, grants	Financial security for institution
Goals	Impact (adulation)	Internal promotion
Primary loyalty	People	The Institution?

Wisdom is everywhere

Seek it, recognise it, remember it.