NIA and the Mentorship Ecosystem

Effective mentorship can play a pivotal role in the professional development and trajectory of emerging professionals, particularly in academic cultures. Yet best practices and innovative approaches to mentorship are often undervalued, or are not recognized by institutions as much as other aspects of professional development receive, such as teaching and research. Scientific research mentors are frequently “squeezed thin": though many wish to mentor, they find it difficult to do so formally without compensation for their efforts. Making this more challenging is that there are few NIH mechanisms that provide direct support for mentorship. These converging factors highlight the need to identify and share effective and robust mentorship practices and resources.

Building on empirically effective mentorship practices in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM) — as outlined in The Science of Effective Mentorship in STEMM , from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) and the National Academies Press (U.S.) in 2019 — NIA is inviting relevant stakeholders to weigh in on how the Institute can best amplify, reward, and share novel, innovative, inclusive, and effective mentoring methodologies or approaches within the aging field, potentially through a new NIA Mentoring Prize.

With this as the context, we pose the following specific questions:

  1. What is your current career level (e.g., graduate/predoctoral student, postdoctoral fellow, assistant professor, etc.)? With which type of higher education institution (e.g., Research Focused (R1 or R2), doctoral/professional universities, or primarily teaching or undergraduate focused) are you currently affiliated?
  2. Describe your mentorship experiences to date, whether from the perspective of a mentor or a mentee. For mentors, please specify the career stage of scientists you have mentored, the number of scientists, etc. What has made those collaborations successful? For mentees, please highlight the mentorship approaches that were most successful and explain how, in your experience, mentees and mentors can achieve an optimal mentor–mentee relationship.
  3. Can you describe specific, inclusive, innovative, and effective practices or methodologies that you have experienced or used to enhance your mentorship approach? Are there specific strategies that should be recognized, amplified, and rewarded?
  4. Does your institution or university value mentorship?
    1. To what degree does your institution/university consider outstanding mentorship in promotion and tenure decisions?
    2. Does your institution/university provide teaching release time or additional resources for dedicated mentoring?
    3. Does your institution/university offer prestigious mentorship awards with meaningful benefits?
    4. How, from your perspective, would an NIA mentorship prize be considered by your institution/university? Is it likely to enhance the institution/university’s interest in rewarding mentorship and sharing mentoring best practices internally?
  5. What are the ways in which mentorship could be better encouraged or facilitated generally — e.g., mentoring networks beyond single advisor relationships, varied funding mechanisms that directly support mentorship/mentorship programs, etc. — and specifically by NIA?
  6. What should NIA consider in soliciting submissions from exceptional mentors with highly effective mentorship practices? How should a prize for such mentors be formulated to ensure that it will also amplify best practices?
  7. Should prize submissions be written by the mentors who would receive the award? Or by mentees who have benefited from exceptional mentorship? Or perhaps submissions should be from the departmental chair or Dean? Should only a certain number of submissions per institution be allowed? How can NIA ensure that the mentee experience, specific mentorship strategies, and amplification plans are included in a submission?
  8. Should the prize require submissions to demonstrate highly effective mentorship practices, a plan for sharing best practices within an institution, and the development of resources for new mentors?

All information collected will be anonymized in any public sharing that we do. Please submit your responses via this Microsoft Form or send your responses to NIAMentorship@nih.gov by close-of-business on Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. The collected responses will be used to inform and refine programmatic approaches to NIA-supported mentorship.

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