Building on the success of our pilot round in 2024, Mentoring@CERN is a joint initiative of the Women in Technology (WIT) and LHC Early Careers Mentoring programmes.

This programme provides a unique opportunity for individuals with an affiliation to CERN to engage in meaningful mentorship relationships, fostering professional growth and personal development and facilitate networking.

Who is eligible?

• To be eligible, you need to have a contract with CERN (everyone from staff, fellow, student, user, PART or external contractor is invited to apply).

• We have no upper or lower limits for age or career level so anyone can apply to be a mentor or mentee – we select mentor-mentee pairs on a case-by-case basis.

• Mentors can have multiple mentees and a mentee can be both a mentor and a mentee at the same time, if they wish to.

The 2026 round is about to start!

• Informative Session: 26 January 2026 Join us for a  Virtual Mentoring Information Meeting on Monday 26th January at 5 PM to learn more about the programme, ask questions, and understand how mentorship can benefit your career at CERN. Please note that the new mentoring round will introduce some updates to the programme. Even if you have participated in previous editions, this session may be particularly relevant to you.
  

• Registration Period: 1 February – 28 February 2026 Applications for mentors and mentees will be open during this period. The application form will be available on Indico and will take less than 5 minutes to complete.
  

• Matching Process: March 2026 During this phase, we will carefully review all applications to match mentors and mentees based on their goals, interests, and professional backgrounds.
  

• Kick-Off Meeting: 13 April 2026 12:00, The session representent the official start of the Mentoring Programme! The meeting is intended to provide practical tips, templates, and prompts to help participants establish a strong foundation for their mentorship journey.
  

• Mentoring Round: April – December 2026 Once matched, mentors and mentees are free to meet at a frequency and schedule that suits them, enabling tailored guidance throughout the nine-month round.
  

• Survey to the participants: January 2027

The Mentoring @ CERN 2026 programme (III edition) is about to take place: you can participate to the informative session on 26th January 2026, where you will find out about key dates, in particular the Registration Period. The application form for Mentees will be open for about 1 month between February and March 2026. If you wish to take part as a Mentor, you can appply all-year round here.

When applying, you will be asked to fill a form which will likely take less than 5 minutes to complete. You are also asked to attach your CV and a short motivation letter.

We ask for this information to help us to find the most compatible mentor/mentee to help you to achieve your goals. We do this by manually looking through each application so the more information that you can provide, the better!

Details about how we will use, store and later delete your data can be found on this page.

For any questions regarding the program, please, contact us: mentoring.cern@cern.ch