A new approach to mentoring for research careers: the National Research Mentoring Network

Christine A Sorkness,Kim Spencer,Abby Cook,Duplicate Of Weber-Main Duplicate Of Weber-Main,Nicole Langford,Rafael Luna,Adriana Báez,Erin Kelly,Drew Simenson,Greg Adelsberger,Paige Cooper,Kristin Eide,Angela Byars‐Winston,Theresa M Pesavento ,Anne Marie Weber-Main,Meldra Hall,Mónica I Feliú-Mójer ,Richard Mcgee,Jonathan K Stiles ,Christine Pfund,Thad Unold,Alp Deveci,Melissa Mcdaniels,Japera Johnson,Donald M Wilson ,Judith K Gwathmey ,Anthony Tissera,Ann D Smith ,Jenna Griebel Rogers ,Eileen M Harwood ,Spero M Manson ,Amanda R Butz ,Damaris Javier,Clifford J Steer ,Dedra Buchwald,Harlan P Jones ,Sandra Crouse Quinn ,Mary Ruth Fernandez ,Kimberly Lawson,Winston E Thompson ,Amy R Jones ,Mona N Fouad ,Andrea Gouldy,Stephanie House,Stephen B Thomas ,Janet Branchaw,Alexis Short,Priscilla Pemu,Emily Utzerath,Douglas F Paulsen ,Maria Elena Zavala,Jamboor K Vishwanatha,Elizabeth Ofili ,Kolawole S Okuyemi,Veronica Y Womack

doi:10.1186/s12919-017-0083-8

Abstract

Background and purposeEffective mentorship is critical to the success of early stage investigators, and has been linked to enhanced mentee productivity, self-efficacy, and career satisfaction. The mission of the National Research Mentoring Network (NRMN) is to provide all trainees across the biomedical, behavioral, clinical, and social sciences with evidence-based mentorship and professional development programming that emphasizes the benefits and challenges of diversity, inclusivity, and culture within mentoring relationships, and more broadly the research workforce. The purpose of this paper is to describe the structure and activities of NRMN.Key highlightsNRMN serves as a national training hub for mentors and mentees striving to improve their relationships by better aligning expectations, promoting professional development, maintaining effective communication, addressing equity and inclusion, assessing understanding, fostering independence, and cultivating ethical behavior. Training is offered in-person at institutions, regional training, or national meetings, as well as via synchronous and asynchronous platforms; the growing training demand is being met by a cadre of NRMN Master Facilitators. NRMN offers career stage-focused coaching models for grant writing, and other professional development programs. NRMN partners with diverse stakeholders from the NIH-sponsored Diversity Program Consortium (DPC), as well as organizations outside the DPC to work synergistically towards common diversity goals. NRMN offers a virtual portal to the Network and all NRMN program offerings for mentees and mentors across career development stages. NRMNet provides access to a wide array of mentoring experiences and resources including MyNRMN, Guided Virtual Mentorship Program, news, training calendar, videos, and workshops. National scale and sustainability are being addressed by NRMN “Coaches-in-Training” offerings for more senior researchers to implement coaching models across the nation. “Shark Tanks” provide intensive review and coaching for early career health disparities investigators, focusing on grant writing for graduate students, postdoctoral trainees, and junior faculty.ImplicationsPartners from diverse perspectives are building the national capacity and sparking the institutional changes necessary to truly diversify and transform the biomedical research workforce. NRMN works to leverage resources towards the goals of sustainability, scalability, and expanded reach.

Highlights

Background and purposeEffective mentorship is critical to the success of early stage investigators, and has been linked to enhanced mentee productivity, self-efficacy, and career satisfaction
We offer the National Research Mentoring Network (NRMN) approach as a template to other comparable international institutes of health research, such as the National Institute of Health Research United Kingdom (NIHR UK) [21], the Canadian Institutes of Health Research CIHR) [22], and the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) [23]
Evaluation of NRMN activities and outcomes NRMN is interested in both program-specific formative evaluation and cross-program evaluation of participant outcomes

Summary

Introduction

Effective mentorship is critical to the success of early stage investigators, and has been linked to enhanced mentee productivity, self-efficacy, and career satisfaction. Robust mentorship has been linked to enhanced mentee productivity, self-efficacy, and career satisfaction; it is an important predictor of the success of researchers in training [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12]. In studies on barriers to National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding, minority investigators indicated that inadequate mentoring, lack of understanding about institutional requirements, lack of institutional support, and social, cultural, and environmental factors all posed obstacles to success [17].

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