ESA Climate Office/EGU Mentoring Partnership Scheme

Call for Applications

About the ESA Climate Office Mentoring Scheme

The ESA Climate Office Mentoring Scheme offers pastoral mentoring and career advice from individuals working at the Climate Office to PhD candidates. ESA Climate Office team members come from a variety of backgrounds and have progressed through several different career trajectories (academia, industry, policy etc.). The Scheme aims to support professional orientation and clarification of career goals, to broaden your professional network, and to enhance personal strengths and development. Many of the EGU Division topics are applicable for careers related to earth observation (climate, geodesy, cryosphere etc.) and, as such, the scheme aims to highlight relevant ESA projects to Early Career Scientists.

The ESA Climate Office will support three mentorships that would last for approximately one year, starting in September. As well as pastoral mentoring and career advice, the ESA Climate Office will support travel and accommodation costs to attend the annual ESA Climate Colocation meeting. The ESA Colocation provides an opportunity to engage the CCI science teams, experts, and product users. These meetings engage scientists, experts, and users to provide regular scientific updates, share best practice and identify new opportunities. See, for example, the agenda for the 2023 Colocation meeting.

As part of the mentoring scheme, EGU will provide a registration fee waiver for participants to attend the EGU’s General Assembly in Vienna, Austria. The annual EGU General Assembly is Europe’s largest and most prominent geosciences event. It attracts more than 18,000 scientists, over half of which are early careers, from all over the world.

What does the mentoring entail?

It is envisaged that the follow steps will take place to provide mentoring support to individual PhD candidates:

1. Initial introductory calls with mentees by the ESA climate office to learn about the team members, their career paths, their projects, and science interests etc.
2. One-on-one pairing of mentees with an ESA Climate Office member (allocation based on shared interests) where monthly calls are encouraged.
3. Attending ESA and EGU relevant conferences.
4. A concluding debriefing and feedback process at the end of the process to enhance the scheme in future years.
5. One month overlap at the start / end of the scheme so out-going mentees can connect with in-coming students.