 Hello everybody and welcome to this EGU webinar on Mentoring 101 and the EGU Mentoring Scheme. Today you'll hear from four speakers to tell you all about their experiences of mentoring and also the EGU Mentoring Scheme. Alongside we'll also hear a little bit about the outstanding student and PhD candidate presentation award. My name is Jenny Thurston and I am a senior advisor at a science and research company in the Arctic. I'd like to introduce Solmaz Mahajir who is a assistant professor at the University of Central Asia and she has a research background in geology but is also the EGU Mentoring Officer and on the Outreach Committee. Thank you Jenny for the introduction and hello everyone. My name is Solmaz Mahajir and I'm an assistant professor at the University of Central Asia. I'm also a member of the EGU Outreach Committee and this year I am happy to support the mentoring program at EGU 22. So today I just want to take a few minutes to introduce our mentoring program and hopefully encourage you to participate in this program either as a mentee or a mentor. So the aim of this program is actually to support first time conference attendees or the mentees. And as you may know EGU General Assembly or any other large conference can be a very overwhelming experience for any scientist, but especially for those who are attending for the very first time. So the program is there to provide support to those who need it and also to help the mentees build connections with other researchers in their field. And the way EGU Mentoring Program does that is through several activities. One of them is helping the mentees to navigate the conference. So whether or not the conference is virtual or in person, the mentees can rely on the support that they can get from the mentors to know how to navigate in this very large conference and be able to attend the sessions that are beneficial to them, but also become more aware of other opportunities that exist out there, including professional development activities, also career development opportunities. We also say most importantly the program is there to really support networking and we actually encourage the mentors to introduce at least one or three of their own colleagues or people that they know that could benefit their mentees to their mentees. So this is another way of supporting the mentees throughout this program. We also encourage the mentors to connect you with at least one to three of their own colleagues or people that they know could potentially be beneficial to you. And finally, this mentorship program will provide you an opportunity to exchange feedback on professional activities, career development opportunities, or any other program that might be beneficial to you. So to take advantage of this program. The very first thing that is required is that you should be registered for the EGU 22 as general assembly. So if you have registered for that then you are qualified for this program if you haven't and you're planning to do that. That's also great. So just make sure that you are planning to attend the EGU 22 in order to participate in this program. And here I've shown the link. So if you go to this link that's shown here and I'll ask Jenny to put this link in the chat box for you as well so that you have access to it. If you go to this link you will see another link for registration form and all you need to do is to click on that and complete the registration form to sign up for the program. Please note that we have two deadlines for the mentees and the mentors. The program is open for the mentees until March 25 and for the mentors until April 11. And the difference between these two dates is because we often get more mentees than mentors, and we want to make sure that we are able to support all the mentees that we can get. So we are extending the deadline for the mentors a little bit more so that we can recruit perhaps more mentors so that all the mentees can have someone to be matched with. So once you go to that link and you see the registration form. I also have some details here on the slides that shown here. It took me about 10 minutes to register as a mentor. And this is my second time doing this form. So it's quite easy and you don't have to spend too much time completing it. And you will be asked to indicate your mentoring role so whether or not you want to be a mentor or a mentee. And you will be also asked to indicate how many general assembly meetings you have attended so far. So if you are planning to apply as a mentor. You can do that if you have attended at least two EGU GA meetings, and this could also be the meetings in the last two years which were virtually done. And if you want to apply as a mentee the only requirement is that you have never attended the general assembly meeting before, or you have attended it only once. So once you meet those requirements then you're all set, you will be asked to enter some information just general information about your affiliation at the country of affiliation your position the languages that you speak. And most importantly, your scientific divisions within the EU and the research interests. Now, the scientific divisions it's not a mandatory field so if you are not part of any scientific division at the EU don't worry too much about it. What really is important is your research interest and you have an opportunity to select from a long list of those that apply to you. And finally you're asked to provide a very short introduction. So this is a very small paragraph about yourself and indicate your gender preferences. If you ask us to match you with a specific gender preference. Then this parameter will take priority over your scientific divisions and research interests. And the idea here is that if someone wants to be matched with a specific gender. We respect that and we prioritize that. So, once you have done that. What's next and what can you expect from the mentoring program. So once we have that information from the mentees and the mentors then we will go through all the information and will try to find the best match for you. Once we have the best match for you we will inform you via email we will inform the mentees and the mentors and will encourage you to get in contact with one another. We also offer some ideas and tips as to how to connect prior to the EU 22 event and how to maintain that connection throughout the program and even perhaps later. We are organizing an icebreaker event that will most likely be held virtually we encourage you to attend that event. This would be a really good chance to again get more acquainted with your mentor but also meet other mentees and mentors participating in the program. We also let you know about some of the short courses and networking opportunities that are relevant to you. And in terms of the suggestions that we make to the mentor and the mentee pairs. We ask you to contact each other and meet at least once prior to the EU 22 meeting and this meeting obviously can be done virtually. And during this meeting, we recommend that you define your own program together for during the GA meeting and possibly after that and really discuss your objectives for the mentoring program so this would be a great opportunity for a mentee for instance to explain what they really want to get out of this relationship and for the mentor to also be clear whether or not he or she can provide that. You will also be encouraged to meet again at the end of the GA meeting so that you can continue your discussions to exchange some feedback or even possibly discuss some future connections that you would like to maintain. But it's very important for you to know that it is completely up to you how many times you would like to connect with your mentor or with your mentee. And how you want to go about spending your time during this relationship that you have during the meeting and maybe even possibly afterwards but this is completely up to you. We are here to support you but you take the lead once you're matched. So with that I will end my short presentation if you have any question you can contact me via the email that's shown there. And, and again I encourage you to sign up for this program if you would like to sign up as a mentor we also encourage early career scientists to also participate as mentors, especially if they have attended the EU meeting, at least twice. And, and for the mentees to really take advantage of this opportunity. Thank you. Thank you so much so much that's a really great introduction so much information and all of this will be or is available on the EU websites please take a look there for any more information. So now I would like to introduce a previous mentor that we have had at the EU and in other schemes. This is Stephanie Sims and she's a lecturer in Research and Development at the University of West Scotland. And she used to also be involved in the EU as the early career science representative and a number of other avenues so perhaps you've seen her around Stephanie. Thank you so much and yes, I'm still kind of attached to EU even though I don't really do geosciences anymore but it's hard to, hard to let go from such a great organization. And it's great to hear from someone's but obviously all the benefits to the mentees but I wanted to focus a little bit what you can get out of this as a as a mentor and I have mentored once I think the mentoring scheme came in towards the end of my kind of very active experience at EU but I have mentored since kind of through kind of a Twitter program I don't think it runs anymore but I got matched with the geoscientist. I think we've been working together now actually 18 months or something like that. I really enjoy from the mentoring perspective is actually learning from someone's experience that's very different to my own so the person I'm mentoring at the moment is a black geoscientist in the UK. And just hearing kind of you know her experiences around job applications or other things. And some of them are truths that you hear about but actually having that kind of personal connection to those experiences really helped me to maybe see how I want to change some of the things that are happening, how I want to use. I guess my, my input and what I have at my own institution but also the wider field to support. Scientists not just geoscientists but scientists and researchers in similar situations, for example. And it's really a way, I think for you to a stay connected what happens we sometimes depending on where we are on the career ladder can maybe forget. And what it's like, you know, starting out things to change the funding landscape change changes all the time, you know how people maybe move from PhD to postdoc to other things that I know there's a lot more interest for example going into industry. I think as a obviously is important as a mentee to have someone who knows a little bit about some of these things. And obviously that's where the matching comes in. But I really think it's important for you to kind of use the role as a mentor to learn from a mentee for me this is always a two way relationship it's not just me telling a person. This is what I did so you should do the same it's more actually using my experience to maybe help someone figure out what they want to do I think it's really important to have some of those questions in mind. In what they want to do next and have you thought about that so with my mentee for example I share a lot of resources that help her reflect. Different kind of sheets are find online that I'm like, this is a good exercise to look back, you know what have you done in the last six months what do you want to do and then we talk about it and it's actually. It's that discussion that really helps it's not me giving advice it's not me, you know, saying, do a B and C and then you'll end up where you want to end up it's actually trying to be more of a bit of a guide in a way and a. As a peer leader I've seen with with a mentee I have a moment, a lot of it was around confidence building, especially after getting rejection after rejection after rejection, having someone kind of in the corner that helps you. You know, pick yourself up again have maybe a look over that. I know when you attend the general assembly you probably won't have that kind of you know it's not that long a timeframe but if you are thinking about longer term and experiences especially if you are as a mentor if you're willing to. I don't want to say give up off your time because it's not really giving up off time or really I get so much back from the this relationship. But if there is something you could see happening longer term and it depends obviously on the match. It's really worthwhile to think about how you can support a person. There are a number of things that will encounter and you will develop a little toolbox for yourself as well as definitely things I found, for example the reflection exercises that I end up using myself. And I share in with like colleagues for example as well so definitely. It's kind of a mentee heart on and as Soma said if you've been to two general assemblies I think you can sign up to do both as well if you want to so if you want to be maybe depending where you are in the face. Mentored, but also do the mentoring you can maybe think about if you can do both. Obviously, if there are more mentees and mentors, then you if you've been maybe mentor before if you're a bit more experienced you might not get one but I definitely recommend you to think about mentoring as well. I know it can seem like to general assemblies. You might feel like you're not like what do I have to offer if only been twice maybe you're towards the end of a PhD maybe just started to postdoc people will definitely benefit from your experience and you will benefit from that discussion so don't think, you know, don't let imposter syndrome get in the way of signing up to be a mentor. You will definitely benefit from your experience and having that one to one connection which something like the general assembly can be a little bit difficult to find sometimes and especially with the hybrid might be nice to have that, you know that personal contact with one person especially meeting beforehand and getting over some of those hurdles. I think that's probably all from me for now. Yeah, that's fantastic thank you very much. Yeah, it's very nice way to try and think of it so I'm trying to reframe it as a networking opportunity for both sides rather than sort of a give and take situation. Yeah, I like that. Now I will introduce a former mentee from the EGU Mentoring Scheme last year. Adithya Neden-Cheron is a master's student at the University of, let me just double check. Adithya Neden-Cheron is a master's student at the University of La Aquilla in Italy and Sapienza University of Rome, and he's a master's student in atmospheric sciences. Thank you, Dr Jenny for introducing me. Okay, so I attended EGU twice. So the last year I also applied for the EGU Mentoring Scheme and I was mentored by Dr Jenny Turton, and I was attended for in person conferences previously before the pandemic. And also one more mentoring scheme in another conference, but I really like this mentoring. A few reasons being because we actually planned out when we are going to meet before online as we plan and then we discuss these are my aims. For example, since I'm in a master's program, I wanted to apply for a PhD program next once I finish this. So she actually told me this is how it goes on. So I should not really hurry up during my master's and so many things. And we also met during the conference. So as we planned, this is how I'm going to attend all those sessions of my interest and look for other topics to attend as well, not just really atmospheric science. Maybe something that's a little off the atmospheric science might also be of interest to you. So I also ended up in those sessions because those were nice. And at the end to actually then discuss what I did during the virtual conferences. And not just this, since she also had other mentees with her, I think there were also four other mentees with her so we all met together in the first meeting also during the conference and we also got a network more otherwise during this virtual conference is we don't generally talk to a lot of people. So this, this was really helpful me to network with other people otherwise during the sessions we barely quit and questions and then in fact that most people at least that's what I didn't really get to interact with a lot of people during the virtual conferences as compatible in presence once and then from her experiences. She told me how it is for PSP candidate for so that I can actually decide if I really want to get into PSP, not just because I'm interested in research, I should end up doing a PSP right so maybe in industry as well there is R&D where I can go and do the research and the EGU pairing is really nice because I actually got paid to her and from her experience actually helped me out and not necessarily that every she's an ECS herself so I actually liked that I got paid to an ECS because she's exactly where I would like to be in the future so she knows what's happening right now and maybe I might be wrong in saying this for example my supervisor she is like in her 50s so her experience is going to help me yes but probably what's happening currently she might be knowing more and ECS would be actually knowing better about it and we could actually since the age difference is not much so we can exchange thoughts more frequently and then we also kept in touch through emails and then discuss a few things here and there or maybe send greetings during Christmas, New Year so yeah so for me it was a really nice experience and if you were attending EGU this year so you should definitely do it be it in person or the virtual one. Thank you very much. That's very nice words also. Our final speaker today is Lina Noak who is a lecturer in Volcanology and Geology at the Frey University in Berlin and she is also the outstanding student and PhD candidate presentation, OSPP Award Coordinator. Thanks so much for the introduction I hope you can see my shared screen now the presentation is perfect. Yeah so I want to introduce to you something else the different schemes that we have at EGU which I think is equally beneficial also to the early students and PhD candidates that we have at EGU and this is the so-called OSPP contest to the outstanding student and PhD candidate presentation contest. This contest has actually been organized since quite a long time so it started actually in 2003 with one of the EGU division, the HS division that wanted to give a stronger highlight to the poster presentations that they had in the division. And since then it was actually from year to year growing and adding more divisions and at some point like 2008 it became more or less unionized so almost every division participated in this contest. And at that point it also got a little bit more structured so this contest is awarding out of about 30 participants always one of the best top presentation. Initially it was a poster presentations as changed over the times and I'm coming back to this on the next slide. Now, in the last years we always had something like 2000 participants per year, especially over the entire EGU. So this really leads them to a lot of OSPP awardees and I'm really happy that so many early career students could benefit from the scheme from the OSP contest. I don't think I have to say anything specific of why in 2020 we did not have a contest I think you all know what happened and it was actually to show the time to be able to react and to organize the contest for a virtual meeting. But now we actually got up to track and started again this OSP contest last year. So far from next year or this year 2022, the award could be you. So, what is this contest? What is it about? Well, as I said, originally it was actually planned as contest for poster presentations. So originally each you started having all the presentations and poster presentations, and the poster sessions sometimes were not attended as good. There was actually an additional emphasis on the posters by asking people to come to the poster board and actually judge the different criteria, as opposed to that have been presented by bachelor master students or PhD candidates. This also gave a larger emphasis into the poster sessions. And later we started this great Pico scheme so I don't know how many of you have been at the last in person EGU meeting, which is now almost three years ago actually, where you also have a screen similar to a poster board but actually showing an presentation of your work. And also the idea is the same thing that we wanted to give a stronger highlight to this type of presentation and attract more people to join for the Pico sessions. And so the rules for this contest is that everyone who is a bachelor or master student or PhD candidate can participate in the contest. You can also participate if you just finished your PhD. After the first of January of the year that each year is taking place. So for this year it would actually be if you obtained your degree after the beginning of the year, even as opposed to you're allowed to participate this year. The important is that if you want to participate in the contest you have to be the first and presenting author of the submitted abstract. Certainly sometimes this creates problems if your PhD supervisor for example submitted the presentation for you, or if you are second also but presenting all that you're not eligible for the award. This was actually the rules of the presentation contest until three years ago, three years ago actually. Now with the virtual conference of course things have changed and those of you that have participated in the EU last year knows that we had different types of presentations that could be given virtually. You could upload a poster or a recorded presentation. Last year we then decided as long as each year is a virtual meeting or hybrid meeting that actually all presentations would be eligible to participate in this contest. So for this year, we know that all presentations will be short or presentations. And so this is actually what will be evaluated them as part of the contest. So the presentation that you have and also the ability to answer questions either live directly as part of the session, or later via the abstract page you can also start to communicate with a different abstract with the authors and with other EU participants. There may also be some someone who would like to evaluate your your work and give a vote, but who was not able to actually see the presentation live in the all session. And for this there's also the possibility to upload some display material. So you should also make use of this, of course. So what are actually the evaluation criteria, what will the judges actually vote on. And these are typically three different categories that people are looking at and it's regarding to the relevance of the study, how significant for example is it the scientific accuracy. So this is both more with respect to the scientific content, but also the way how you present your work is really important and so something like clarity of presentation, but also things like static appeal or the ability to answer questions. All of these are criteria that are taken into account as part of this contest. Who is actually going to vote who's going to evaluate your presentation. And for this actually as the convenience of each of the session will find at least three judges. So this is the general assembly before each EU that will be asked to look at your presentation and to evaluate it. But we also want to make this evaluation or this voting open to all EU participants. So actually since last year it's now possible that all registered EU participants from postdoc level on, as long as they're eligible and not conflicted so they should not be co also they should not have the same shared affiliation as first course, but all of them can actually also in addition vote. And so this way we will really find out which is the best top 3% of the presentation that are participating in the contest. And this is also something if people interested to become a mentor and to support early career scientists, of course, being part of a mentoring scheme is one way to do it but also supporting those VP candidates by voting on these kind of presentations is also really great way to support early career scientists. Now the last thing that you may wonder about is, why should you actually participate. Why goes through the trouble. Why have people evaluate you or your presentation. And well for me personally actually the most important thing is, as I said in the beginning that it really attracts more people to your work. So it's really it gives you a better visibility for your research. But it is also a contest a contest does have an award. So you will get a nice certificate. And what it's also really nice also for the visibility of your research, there will be some kind of official way of giving you the awards so as in person meetings typically there's an award ceremony or in the division meetings, the awards will be presented to you in front of you as the members of your division. You will also allowed to submit an article to one of the open x eGU journals and this will be actually free of charge. And you will be invited to come back for the next eGU meeting, and you will not have to pay anything for the conference registration. So this I think is also a really, really big benefit as an early career scientist you already, you're sure that you're going to come back next year at the next each year as well. For me personally, I actually participated in the OSPP or at that time the name of the contest was different as a PhD student myself. I did try it a couple of times, but what the thing is, you can submit or you can participate in this contest as often as you want, as long as you're eligible to still a student or PhD candidate. And in my final year I was actually successful. And actually for me a really great thing because it's the next general assembly there was a division meeting, and I was an asked to come to the front to receive the certificate and I mean that was nice. But in the first row there was actually a very well known female scientist sitting there. And I knew her, but I don't think she really knew me before and yet met once or twice but I don't think she remembered me. She was sitting in there she was looking at me, like, she was recognizing me smiling at me and putting her thumbs up. It was like, wow, she recognized me. She knows know who I am. One year later I started as a postdoc in your lab. So, I think it was really, it was a really great way for her to notice me as well. And also, now that I've been a judge for about 10 years in this contest myself. And for me, I really like it to be a judge as part of the OSPP contest, because when I'm a judge, I'm forced in a way, positively forced to look at a presentation that normally I might actually not take the time to really check out carefully. In the past years, I regularly, I actually met scientists and got to know really exciting science that normally I would not have known about. And even started later on then like a couple of years later, join projects with OSPP participants whose work I probably would not have known if I wouldn't have been a judge. In a sense, even if only the top 3% of the presentation can actually be considered for an award in the end, it might be still beneficial for everyone to participate. And so, these in a way are my last words to really for everyone consider signing up for the OSPP contest. And for those from a postdoc level on participate in voting and supporting the early career scientists as judges. So, as these are the last last words that I wanted to share with you. Thank you very much. It seems like there's a really nice overlap between the two schemes the OSPP and the mentoring scheme that everybody involved is really getting something out of it and especially moving forward there are advantages going forward in your career path, not just related to the General Assembly, which is really great. All of our speakers have now introduced their different topics and so now we're going to move on to a more discussion or a Q&A session. So a reminder again just to put your questions into the Q&A box so that we can then ask them directly to the speakers. Before I would just come back firstly to Solmaz just to ask for a bit of clarification about the difference between the in person and the virtual attendees. If people are in person attending the GA, will they only be matched up with somebody else in person, or is this not possible. We're going to leave that up to the people who have applied either as a mentee or a mentor. We will do, we will be doing the matching regardless of how people choose to attend the conference. Right, so that will not be taken into account. So it could be very possible that a mentee who is participating in person will be matched with a mentor who will be participating virtually or the other way around. Perhaps both of them will be attending virtually or in person. So we won't be using that as a criteria for matching the mentees and the mentors. In the context of whether or not they should be meeting in person if they can, so if both of the mentee and the mentor are attending the GA in person, it's really up to them how they want to do it. So we always suggest that prior to the week of EGU 22, they get in touch via email and arrange for perhaps a virtual meeting first and discuss if they're comfortable to meet in person. And if both feel comfortable and want to do that it's really up to them how they want to proceed with that. That's great, thank you. And we heard that I did mention that numerous people were signed up to one mentor so some mentors can have a number of mentees. Is there a limit on this and do you think that that's important that they have sort of a numerous mentees with them. So I believe that the mentors can choose anywhere between one to three mentees so the maximum number I think is three. This year when I participated in this program as a mentor for the very first time, I asked for two so I was paired with two mentees, and I thought that was really nice, because I was actually able to arrange meetings for the two of them. So I was not only providing feedback and working with the mentees but the mentees are also in the same virtual space, discussing things with me but also with one another so they will also get to know each other. And they can also be of support to one another if they choose to be. So that's a really nice thing about having more than one mentee is that you can choose to bring them together into one virtual space, or if you're meeting in person maybe you know that the few of you can get together and meet that way. But again this is really up to the mentor how many mentees they want to choose. And I think choosing to as opposed to one I didn't see that really as a as an obstacle but it was kind of nice to have an additional person. And it also makes it I think nicer sometimes for the mentees and also for the mentors, when you have other people joining in, and you have a slightly larger group than it just the one on one discussion. That's great. Thank you very much. We heard from a few of the speakers that early career scientists are eligible to sign up for the mentoring scheme to be a mentor, which is great. Steph, I was just wondering at what stage did you start being a mentor and how has your experience changed through your career. I was trying to think when the mentoring scheme was first introduced because I think that's probably when I was doing it as a mentor and I wonder if that was 2019 2018. I'm not entirely sure. I was a postdoc at the time, and I was also, I think just before around the time I was early career scientist representative for for EGU. I think it was just because it was new and it was the first time and I do. I mean, now in my role as a researcher developer basically that is my, my job now I basically even though I say I mentor one person. I do mentor quite a lot of people that they might not be aware of that's what I'm doing but that's part of my role now. I definitely have learned. I think at the first time I did it I felt it was a lot more about the mentee in the sense of making them meet people and having them kind of meet others and kind of the networking part where I think as I've done it more actually I find it is more now about the discussion part so actually the networking kind of comes more naturally now I think where you maybe suggest someone. But I feel now I really focus more on the kind of the discussion and the reflection as well what what does my mentee want rather than who do they have to meet. What do they want, where do they want to go, how can they get there. And so for example, the mentee I have at the moment, she's really kind of set on applying for a fellowship for her they kind of next career step and I have no idea how to do that I've never had a fellowship. I don't really know, you know what's going on so I've reached out to someone. So I think it's also kind of now being realizing kind of where your limits are in a way and but then obviously using your, maybe connections you have to say, look, I can't help. I can't help with that but I will find someone and I definitely probably wouldn't have been comfortable maybe saying that at the start it was just the kind of it's like a one to one when it's actually isn't your kind of a door to other people as well. Okay, that's great. Thank you so much. And you mentioned quite positive things about your time being a mentee with the EU scheme. How do you think it varied to other schemes you've done, especially if one of them was virtual and the other one was was more in person. Okay, so the one the from a pre from the mentoring scheme in the other conference I was not really paid with someone from the kind of field that I wanted to be in, probably because of the shortage of the mentors over there. So I was paid with someone who's astrobiologist actually. So maybe he was good enough and telling me a few general things and suggesting me maybe this is the general journey is but for me I really wanted more of a personal advice in how this specific area of research works. So I was not able to really get it from him, but then only a few generals, only the general things I could get from him, whereas in case of the easy mentoring scheme I was paid with someone who's more specialized in what I wanted to do so you actually help me get there and get to know more about of my area of interest rather than someone just because I'm not distressed back because he's also an early care scientist, but from a different area of research he could help me out. It didn't really help me out the way I wanted it to be. Okay, so maybe you highlight the answer. Yeah, yeah. I think it highlights quite well that in some cases you might need to sort of have many mentors throughout your life, maybe at different stages or your interests vary, you might want to also see if you can reach out to a different mentor. That's great. Thank you. And Lena, you mentioned that anyone who isn't a student can sign up to be a judge for the OSPP scheme. What if somebody is sort of friends with someone or someone is a professor who knows somebody. How does that work. Of course at some point it's difficult to actually find if judges are eligible or not. We actually do see it regularly that people with the same affiliation still try to add a vote. And it's actually registered but of course the coordinators that look at the awards in the end and select the awards. Now they see if the affiliation is the same just in a slightly different way or so. If people are friends, of course, this is something that's impossible to detect. And I ideally hope that everyone is responsible enough to only vote when you do not feel conflicted yourself. In both ways actually I've also seen it in one case that a colleague from the same institute gave a vote, which was the lowest grades that you could actually give. So they probably didn't like each other. So it's not taken into account because the affiliation can easily filter it out. But if you if you feel conflicted, if your friends or family, or if you just know each other or you have been maybe studying together, but are now at different institutes, you should not vote. Thank you. Thank you very much. And now that we have heard all about the mentoring and the OSP P scheme, anything would you be interested now in signing up as an OSP P participant couldn't get that word as an OSP P participant, or in the future perhaps a mentor. Okay, I might personally want to first attend the EU in person and definitely pass but then OSP P as a participant. Maybe a mentor. Maybe let's say if I end up in a PSD then yes, I can try that. Yeah, in the future. Yeah, that's great. Thank you so much. I have a question in our Q&A box so this is from Marie. She says I always worry that being a mentor will take up too much time, especially leading up to the meeting when I'm usually scrambled to get my presentation ready. Did any of the former mentors feel like it got in the way or slowed you down in any way. We'll start with Steph. Yes, the short answer. I think, obviously, it's down to your, I guess, time management and one of the things one of the first things you probably need to do is be honest how much time you have and let your mentees know and if you tell a mentee, I'll give you half an hour in this week and then maybe two, you know, hours during the general assembly but while we're there, I'll be obviously 100% there. I think, you know, that's great if you have, you know, I don't know 10, 15 minutes but they're going to be really valuable because I can, you know, we may be emailed before because you don't have that much time for to maybe meet on a zoom call but if you don't have time for and all we do in that zoom call is you tell me your responses to my questions. I think that is to a good mentor mentee relationship I think is expectation management is key how much time do I have to give you and what does that then mean for the mentee, you know, because they might want to focus on certain things if they know they have 10 of your precious minutes, but if you can tell them look I can meet for a full afternoon for a coffee chat. That's a whole different conversation to have so I think it's have a think about how much time you think you can, you can give. I'm just curious about all that and I think the mentees would benefit from, I would say maybe 15 minutes the minimum if there's email conversations before, and then maybe up to an hour at a time but and so my mentor meetings at moment are not longer than an hour but then we don't do really email in between but it's great. It's just the relationship I now have as my mentee we do a lot of kind of chat and updates on life and other things but I would probably take on someone new I would probably start with 15 minutes what do you want to get out of this this is how I can help and have this kind of conversation really early on. Fantastic thank you so much is there a specific requirement do you do you suggest anything to mentors and mentees. But Stephanie mentioned that it's important to be honest about your your time commitment with one another. As I mentioned, if you are a mentor and you are mentoring more than one mentee, you could have one meeting for all of your mentees and in that way you reduce the number of meetings you've had. That's one strategy to go about it. But in my case, I also spent a little bit more time prior to the conference with my mentees, especially because both of them wanted my feedback on their presentations, it was their first presentations at a large conference. They even wanted me to take a look at their slides and you know make some comments and maybe improve their presentations a little bit. So we could do those we could do those kind of things prior to the conference so that during the conference, when our time is more limited, we could stay a bit more focused on the program itself. So depending on what you want to do you could also shift some of the work maybe prior to the conference or even things that really have nothing to do with the conference and you want to still discuss with your mentees and the mentees are interested do it after the conference. Perfect, thank you Lena. For me for for mentor I should also say that I was cheating a little bit in the past and so the before GA meeting I typically scheduled doing the icebreaker for the reason because the week before as an OSPP coordinator there's a lot of work so I couldn't really concentrate on meeting this during the icebreaker that's completely different and I can really take one or two hours time of it. Actually the offer to to look over the presentation slides that's what I've done as well but then we are email before actually meeting as a general assembly, but I think that's really something. It really depends on the mentor and the mentees so in the past, I had the feeling that if you meet on Sunday it's it might be still in time but of course if you can take the time the week before it's much better. Okay, great thank you. You mentioned that you you speak now by email with your your previous mentor and what you also met sort of online. Did you agree with that beforehand or is it just kind of evolved organically that you still keep in touch. No, it was more organic thing. I don't remember agreeing with anyone like that so because you just want to maintain the professional connect right so possibly you might also help me out again in the future and then maybe we could also meet in the next in EGU. So, yeah, that's how it was. And also one more thing I forgot to add up so basically I'm an engineer I'm an aerospace engineer so and I was sitting shifting that must be fine so I also needed some help in this transition right so at this point of time when probably you're shifting your specialization you might need a specific kind of advice so it's also great that I received with this specific mentoring. Maybe there might be other people who were probably confused that okay I was doing something in this specialization I wanted to do something more you think really I can switch it and then if yes how can I do it smoothly. That's great, thank you. Okay we're coming to the end of our webinar now and we've got so much longer left but I think a final question that was posed in the Q&A box is about feedback how to gain feedback once you have participated in these events. Is there a way for EGU to gather feedback or also for mentors and mentees to reflect and also participants and have a think about what they would do better or what they enjoyed. So as we'll start with you first. So as far as I know in the last mentoring programs for the last EGU General Assembly meetings. We didn't systematically collect feedback from the mentees and the mentors. I think we had maybe one or maximum two questions in the final survey form that we ask all attendees to complete. But we didn't have a specific you know feedback collection from the mentors and the mentees and this is something that I am working on at the moment. With this year's EGU meeting to change that a little bit and begin talking to the mentees and the mentors and get their feedback and use their feedback to improve the program so we will be doing that beginning this year. Okay great and Lena for the OSPP scheme. So what we actually do have is that each of the OSPP participant receives the feedback from the evaluations so this is something that we have implemented so that independent of if you're elected for in what or not that you you get an feedback of what people found specifically good about your poster or your presentation. We did not do it for the virtual content but we will add this kind of feedback in the future again. If there is any specific feedback set either you or others would like to share about the organization of the OSPP content contest then we have in each division we have an OSPP coordinator. And they're happy to to receive any kind of feedback or if you prefer also you can of course contact me directly as a right OSPP coordinator. And actually the feedback that we got in the past was typically always implemented then for future meetings. Okay, perfect. Thank you. And Stephanie you mentioned sort of how it's changed as you've moved through your mentoring career and I'm just wondering how you personally feedback and reflect. Yeah, that's a really good question. And so with my current mentee actually as I said so that I can't remember what the onset was but I think it had similar to the this mentoring scheme that was kind of a time limit where they were basically said this is for how long we'll be kind of helping you and then after that you're on your own. So I think considering we're still like talking 18 months in is a good sign. However, and I have checked every now and then I did ask, like, is this still helpful and if not like no hard feelings just tell me it's no longer you know I mean it's not part you know I rather you find someone that you find helpful. And then we have changed through those conversations we have changed the focus a little bit as well when she's like actually maybe you know I can still help. And then I think the other way for me it's just kind of thinking about mostly my time I would love you know in a way like I would love to help so many more people but it's been it's like one person at the moment I had a second person for a while. Who just from their time commitments couldn't do it anymore. And that's the other one I think it's just every now and then kind of checking in with time commitments and can I still give this person the time then even as I said for example with the fellowship coming up. I'm waiting for another person that I've reached out to to get back and see if they can do it for example. And that's probably going to be another time point is like, are you going to need both of us at the moment. So maybe we go from so at the moment we meet once we used to meet fortnightly now we meet once a month. Will it go down to once every other months will it go down to, I mean it there will be a point where maybe just check in a quarter and then organically it might kind of fizzle out actually as you know as they move on and do other things. And I do think this kind of this is probably for if you are a mentor even the mentee I guess after the general assembly. This is probably a question is like would I like to meet with this person again. If yes why if not, why not as well and that can maybe help you figure out. Maybe the next mentor maybe they, you know, like we've heard, maybe they weren't quite in the right field. And now I can use this actually like what field do I need or what do I want to get out of that and use it as a learning curve as well like who do you want to connect with and use that experience to help you. And it's worthwhile to reach out to people afterwards as well and ask if they'd be willing, you know, to mentor, you know, either even if you enjoyed it they know let your mentor know that I was a good experience you would like to keep in touch, you know maybe on whatever they can offer you have to be a bit flexible with the time of your, your mentor. Thank you so much. This has been a really informative webinar we've heard a lot about mentoring opportunities and feedback that people have, but also on the award scheme for early career science for students. So thank you everybody so much for this webinar. It will be uploaded to the EGU YouTube channel in a couple of weeks so if you wanted to come back and hear the advice again then feel free. Thank you so much for watching. Bye bye.