II Edition – 2025

The 2025 Edition (II Edition) is now ongoing and it will last until the end of 2025.

The applications for metees started in late February, while mentors can apply all-year round.

The selection and matching happened in March-April. The first kick-off meeting happened on 14th April 2025, opening officially the Mentoring Program.

Besides individual meetings, during the programme trainings, networking events and catch-ups are being organized.

The programme will continue until the end of 2025. During January 2026, a survey will be distributed both to mentors and mentees.

I Edition – 2024 – Pilot run

In the first Edition of Mentoring@CERN, 91 pairs (14 alumni) were matched!

What worked well

• 90% satisfaction rate
• 84% appreciate the matching is taken care of by the organisers
• 67% achieved their goals (12% achieved them partially)
• 55% will continue meeting each other

What could be improved

• more networking opportunities​
• more assistance in establishing contact between mentee and mentor
• more guidelines on goal settings

“Really valuable experience, I think what helped a lot was that I was paired with a really great mentor who was able to give me some longer-term perspectives on career evolution and managing work-life balance in our discussions.”

“Being from a non-CERN member country, this acceptance gave me a huge boost and motivated me to keep going, no matter the challenges. As I had hoped at the start of this program, this experience has truly made me feel like a part of the big CERN community.”

“I’ve been part of the mentoring program since the beginning, two years ago. This was the opportunity for me to meet outstanding people I would not have met otherwise, to share our respective experiences. I learnt a lot from them, about team work, motivation, work-life balance and more. I hope that what they grabbed from my vision and knowledge about the laboratory will be useful to them in their career, here or outside”