Sometimes you do understand — but out of loyalty, you don’t feel you can say so. Other times, you genuinely don’t see the issue at all.

When mentoring mentees from the same department, you are often invited to listen to stories where shared colleagues or leaders play a role — and these situations can be filled with dilemmas. Questions around confidentiality, loyalty, and neutrality can easily arise.

These are exactly the kinds of dilemmas that mentors in internal programmes need to be prepared to handle.

That is why addressing relational and ethical dilemmas is such an important part of mentor training.

Over the past year, we at DRCMR have had the pleasure of getting support from Sarah Heelund and Mulle Signe Nielsen  in designing and implementing our mentoring programme — including preparing mentors to navigate these kinds of dilemmas and situations.

The engagement speaks for itself: a recent survey conducted in the department showed that 92% of mentors and mentees are actively participating in the programme. And active participation is, of course, key to unlocking the full value of mentoring.

A big thank you to Postdoc Janine Bühler, her team, and management for a great collaboration.