Our career coaching programme provides many benefits to participants and our School, as well as useful lessons for other Universities. Importance of Career Coaching in Science HTML Why is career coaching so important in for academics in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM)? Dr Meriem El Karoui comments on the lessons she learnt from setting up a career-coaching programme in the School of Biological Sciences. With the ‘coaching for success’ programme now in its third round, she reflects on how three excellent coaches provided benefits to participants and insights on better supporting academic staff. The video was filmed by Dr Barry Gibb and supported by funding from an Advance HE (formerly Leadership Foundation for Higher Education) Small Development Project grant 2018. Advice for other universities Our protocol for success guide provides advice for other universities interested in setting-up their own career coaching programme, including: Find coaches who know academia - this helps them understand the challenges scientists face Have a launch event to explain the programme - invite coaches, Chair or E&D Committee, Head of Department and the scientists you wish to target Set-up an anonymous application process and use a third party to rank applications Ask for feedback at the end of the coaching period – to identify if there are any issues or areas for improvement Document Protocol for success - career coaching (918.52 KB / PDF) If you have any questions about setting up a career coaching programme please contact us. Equality and Diversity Team School of Biological Sciences Email: sbs.EandD@ed.ac.uk. This article was published on 2024-06-17
