The mentoring programme "Perspektiven. Wege in die Wissenschaft" (in German) will be launched for the winter semester 2025/2026. Applications are possible from January 2025. The new mentoring program is an offer for advanced doctoral candidates and early postdocs of all genders who are pursuing their career goal within science. The program is aimed at doctoral candidates and postdocs with a non-academic family background.

The nexus of social background and educational inequality in the German higher education system has been an increasingly discussed topic for several years and is increasingly being taken as an opportunity by graduate institutions to offer support and qualification programs to promote scientists in early career phases who are the first in their family to pursue an academic career.

Over the course of the one-year programme, mentors from Academia support their mentee with questions about decision-making and career orientation. The mentoring programme also includes a supporting program including a kick-off and final workshop. In addition, workshops, discussion evenings or lectures, which are organized according to the mentees' wishes, offer the opportunity to acquire additional interdisciplinary knowledge and to network with each other.

The programme  is aimed at doctoral candidates in the final phase of their dissertation and early postdocs who completed their dissertation no more than three years ago. The program is held in German. However, the one-to-one mentoring can take place in other languages. People who are outside the gender binary system are explicitly addressed. Together with the trainer who accompanies the programme, we want to create a "safer space" for all genders.