Researcher professional lives are versatile and diverse. Their competences and skills are extremely valuable in many different jobs and sectors. However, early career researchers do not always have the information and contacts that give them access to these options beyond academia.
REBECA wants to facilitate that young researchers explore and reflect on their options beyond academia. During 6 months, the mentoring programme will put in touch early career researchers working in Spanish academic institutions or researchers with Spanish nationality working in international academic institutions with highly skilled professionals working in Spain in industry, management, and other sectors beyond academia related with science, engineering, mathematics, social science and humanities disciplines.
The programme will facilitate a minimum of 6 meetings, where mentors and mentees will get to know each other, share their experiences and reflect on their professional perspectives. Organizers will provide the structure and contents to inspire a fruitful and beneficial relationship between pairs.
We are back!
Registration for mentor is now open!
How to apply to REBECA by EURAXESS mentoring programme 2025-2026
Before starting, please take into account that the language of this programme edition is Spanish. This means trainings and events will be in Spanish, but we accept applications in English and Spanish, and the language that you communicate with your mentor is decide among you and your potential mentor.
If you are a company willing to bring employees as mentors, send us an email to euraxess-spain@fecyt.es.
- 14th of OctoberMentor registration opens
- 3rd of NovemberMentee registration opens
- 24th of NovemberMentor and mentee registration closes
- 2nd week of DecemberCommunication of selection
- 13th of JanuaryOnline Kick of meeting
- January-June 2026Mentoring phaseDescription
- We suggest pairs to meet once per month
- Trainings, career and networking events will be organized. (Calendar of events to be published soon)
- 1st week of JulyClosing event
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What type of mentors are we looking for?
- Professionals, not necessarily PhD holders, working on an activity related to R&D, in any discipline, whose main profession is not teaching or research at a university or research in public research performing organization,
- willing to share their experiences, their professional journey toward their positions, and their knowledge about the sector they are working in.
- There is no need to have experience in mentoring, we will provide you with training and resources; the most important is your willingness to share and support on a voluntary basis the career exploration of early career researchers.
How can a professional register to become a mentor?
If you are interested, please register until 24th of November at 23:59 CET here:
How do we do the matching?
As a first criteria, we assign selected mentees to a mentor, (those who have scored higher in several criteria that we evaluate: communication skills, understanding of mentoring, and other parameters) based on mentee's interests and mentor's professional experience and knowledge. As a second criteria, we can use similar past experiences.
We apply the above criteria selection and matching, but participation is only assured if a match with a mentee is established.
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Who can become a mentee in REBECA by EURAXESS mentoring programme?
- Early career researchers from all disciplines: PhD candidates or PhD holders who have defended their thesis no longer than 8 years ago.,
- who have understood what mentoring means and the goals of the programme,
- who have understood the structure and the rules of the programme,
- and who has reflected on the time, and accept the commitment and responsibilities that comes with participation.
To fill a successful application, before registering check what mentoring means here, read the section of Key elements of REBECA, reflect on the time you need to allocate and read the information below about responsibilities, commitment and rules of participation of mentees.
You will be paired with a highly skilled professional, who voluntarily will dedicate his or her time to listen and share his or her experience. This means you need to commit to this mentoring relationship in order to build trust and rapport.
Enrolling in a mentoring program comes with certain commitments. The program has established the following rules to ensure its smooth functioning and, most importantly, to respect the time and resources given by mentors. It's important that you understand your responsibilities as a mentee and the rules of the programme before enrolling..
Mentee’s Commitment and Responsibilities
- It's important to ensure that you can manage your time and effort and allocate the required time to meetings with your mentor.
- Mentees are responsible for scheduling the pair meetings in agreement with the availability of both parties, and for proactively arranging them.
Rules of the Programme
- Meeting Frequency and Accomplishment. Pairs are expected to meet six times during the program. To receive a certificate of participation, mentees must participate in at least 4 meetings with their assigned mentor.
- Post-Meeting Forms. The mentee is responsible for reporting the meetings through the platform by completing the Logbook after each session.
- Mandatory Group Meetings and Trainings. Mentees are required to attend the kick-off meeting and three training sessions. If a mentee misses a training session without a legitimate and explained reason (note: having a meeting with a supervisor or needing to perform an experiment are not considered legitimate reasons), they won't be able to attend the next session, and the missed sessions won't be certified.
- Flexible Scheduling. There will be two available time slots per training to allow participants to choose the most suitable time. Trainings and meetings will be usually scheduled between 16:00–18:00 and may last 2–3 hours. Trainings and events will be announced in the "Calendar events" section of your account at least one month in advance and available for online registration. Participants are encouraged to check the calendar of events to plan ahead.
Mentee registration will open on 3rd of November
To register in the programme, you need to follow these steps:
- register in the following platform (Call for mentees will open on 3rd of November ).
- answer the multiple choice questions to let us know who you are and what your interests are in regards to the programme
- answer the free text questions about the impact of your research, motivation to participate, and expectations of REBECA programme.
- after registered in the platform, prepare a short CV and send to REBECA coordination team
- We will be receiving applications from 3rd until 24th of November at 23:59 CET
- Only the first 300 applications will be processed.
After completing the application, you will receive an email explaining you the final step to finish your application (sending your CV), please check in your SPAM folder in case you have not received it.
Selection process
We will do our best to try to find a mentor that better meets your expectations; this is why we ask you these few questions in this application. Also, we will try to accommodate researchers to meet the criteria of the programme, but it could also be the case that we need to decline your application if we have too many candidates. If we have too many applications, the REBECA team will do the selection of participants in two phases:
1st phase. Preselection:
- Only the first 300 applications will be processed.
2nd phase. Matching:
- Preselected candidates to be mentees will be ranked by the scoring given to each of the questions of the application. We will highly value responses that have not been prepared using Artificial Intelligence but are based on your own opinions, experiences, and knowledge obtained from other sources. Understanding of the programme commitments is a requirement to continue ranking the application.
- Final selection of participants will be based on the best match possible between the interests of the mentees ranked and the professional experience of the mentors available.
Key elements of REBECA
- Support young researchers in their reflection on their career goals, skills and professional options.
- Facilitate intergenerational, intersectoral and intercultural networking of research professionals.
- Support young researchers to get exposed to other professional careers by the hand of highly skilled professionals.
- Facilitate talent transfer from the academic sector to the private sector.
- Build stronger relationships between the academic sector and the private sector.
- The trainings and networking sessions for mentees and mentors will take place on-line
- The meetings of pairs will be mostly virtual
- On-line match-making events
- On-line community
- The exchange of information is based on altruism
- Mentors are expected to share their professional experience with mentees
- Mentees will have the responsibility of leading the pairs' communication
- 6-months
- An average of 1 meeting per month is expected
- A kick-off training session will be offered for mentors and mentees to facilitate their respective roles
- Mentees will be offered with several trainings related to exploring career options beyond academia and increasing their employability
- Round tables with professionals form private and publica sector to have a broader overview of different professional opportunities
- Topics recommended to address include:
- Professional career expectations.
- Career development needs for moving beyond academia.
- Key transferable skills.
- Key technical skills.
- Differences between academic and non-academic environments.
- Exploration of options beyond academia.
- Academia-Business engagement.
- Gender and diversity dimension
- How to build your network
- Deep reflection on skills:
- Conflict management
- Time and self-management
- Work and life balance
- Communication
- Self-reflection and increase of awareness of career achievements and accomplishments vs job requirements.
- Setting up careers goals.
Organizers
This is an activity led by the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT) within the REsearchers Beyond the aCAdemia EURAXESS Hub. If you want to know more about this Hub, please check: