The International Mentorship Program is a professional development and education program for early-career physicians, researchers, counsellors, nurses, diagnostic scientists and allied health professionals focusing on human genomics and genomic medicine from economically-developing countries, both within and outside Europe.

The awardees will visit the mentor’s institution for approximately one week before or after the ESHG annual conference and attend the conference.

The award will cover expenses, including travel (+visa), accommodation and subsistence (up to a maximum of EUR 1500) as well as registration fees for the ESHG Conference in Glasgow 2023.

• Five awards will be made each year.
• Each applicant should be a member of the ESHG.
• Each applicant should seek a mentor
• Each applicant will complete the brief online application process (2 page CV and 200 word personal statement) and will require a supporting statement from the prospective mentor in the hosting institution/department.
• A successful awardee will not be eligible to apply for a future award.
• An unsuccessful applicant will be able to apply in future rounds.
• The applicants will be selected by the ESHG EduComm

Each awardee will be expected to write a brief report on their experience to share with the ESHG membership online/via the newsletter.

The goals of the International Mentorship Award Program are:

• To share information and ideas and to teach skills that the awardee can pass along to his or her colleagues at their home institutions and will support their own professional development.
• To establish communication and collaborative relationships between the mentor and mentee and their respective institutions which are long-standing and will support the awardee’s career.

The program is not intended for a formal research or clinical placement where a substantive piece of work will be undertaken. This is not practical or appropriate in a one week timeframe.
Rather, it is to provide exposure to different ways of working e.g. participation in multi-disciplinary meetings, attendance at a specialist clinic and opportunity to discuss future career plans - educational, research and clinical.

The mentor and their host Department will be expected to demonstrate their commitment to the longer term support of the awardee.

Notifications of acceptance are expected to be available by mid December 2022.

We appreciate that the COVID-19 pandemic may impact the plans for this new scheme and will work with the awardees and mentors to mitigate.