Mentorship Tools & Toolkits
Mentorship Agreement Library
The CIMER Library of Mentorship Agreements and Compacts 
is a useful resource for setting and aligning expectations between mentor and mentee. This library compiles a list of examples and worksheets for a variety of career stages and disciplines.
IDP Library
CIMER has compiled several example Individual Development Plans (IDPs) which are useful tools for articulating career goals and identifying the professional development and mentoring mentees need to achieve those goals. This library includes a list of examples and worksheets for a variety of career stages and disciplines.
Enhancing Your Mentorship Practice Infographic
The Enhancing Your Mentorship Practice Infographic was produced by CIMER as a part of its work with the NSF-supported Inclusive Graduate Education Network (IGEN) to assist those in taking first steps into building sustainable cultures of mentorship at their institutions.
NASEM Online Toolkit and Report
The Science of Effective Mentorship in STEMM is a consensus report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine which studies mentoring programs and practices at the undergraduate and graduate levels. It also includes an Online Toolkit.
- Consensus report: Download and read the report on the NASEM site
- Online Toolkit link including links to Individual Development Plans (IDPs) and Mentorship Maps: Explore the tools on the NASEM Resource site
Mentoring Toolkit from University of Southern California
Colleagues at the University of Southern California have developed the Mentoring Toolkit from University of Southern California to engage mentors in deeper thinking about how mentoring relationships in graduate education can account for differences in access and opportunity. The exercises are designed to help establish shared understanding of mentoring expectations and facilitate conversations about differences in access and opportunity in mentoring relationships.
Culturally Aware Mentoring
The NRMN Culturally Aware Mentoring (CAM) initiative aims to enhance mentors’ and trainees’ ability to effectively address cultural difference matters in their research mentoring relationships. You can find more information about CAM, the CAM study, and gain access to additional resources for self-reflection and education at the NRMN Culturally Aware Mentoring (CAM) initiative.
Resources Across Four Stages Of Mentorship Relationships
Coming soon!
Resources by Mentoring Competency
Coming soon!
Mentorship Skill Development
Synchronous Training Curricula
UCSF Mentor Training Program Archive
The University of California-San Francisco offers an evidence-based synchronous online mentor training program. Materials from the UCSF Mentor Training Program Archive are available for broader use.
I-TECH (Clinical Mentoring)
The International Training and Education Center on HIV (I-TECH) has an extensive clinical mentoring curriculum. The three-day generic curriculum on basic mentoring skills includes sessions on interpersonal communication skills, clinical teaching skills and program orientation. Many of the materials, particularly those on communication, building relationships, and theories of learning, may easily be adapted for use with research mentors.
Asynchronous & Hybrid Training Options
In the domain of mentor and mentee training, CIMER’s expertise is in the delivery of synchronous in-person and synchronous online workshops. Other colleagues across the country have developed wonderful asynchronous mentor and mentee training tools and have made them publicly accessible, through their own websites and through the course catalog of the National Research Mentoring Network .
We encourage you to consider using some of these tools with your colleagues. These approaches have been evaluated and in most cases are more effective when paired with synchronous discussion groups.
Mentoring Graduate Students, Post Docs & Early Career Faculty
Optimizing the Practice of Mentoring (OPM):
The University of Minnesota’s Optimizing the Practice of Mentoring offers asynchronous online self-paced research mentor training for mentors of graduate students, fellows and early-career faculty. Content is organized into five modules that cover mentoring models, mentor roles and responsibilities, structure and dynamics of the mentoring relationship, and strategies for facilitating, and addressing challenges to, the mentoring process.
NRMN
This self-directed course by NRMN is designed to help faculty members (or other experienced researchers) optimize their mentoring relationships with graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, and early-career faculty. The course predominantly addresses research mentoring that occurs within biomedical, behavioral, and social science fields. However, many of the principles and approaches covered in this course are applicable to other disciplines and other types of mentoring relationships.
Fair Play
Fair Play is interactive, educational game that represents a true to life simulation of the complex social world for a graduate student in academia. Players take the perspective of Jamal Davis, a Black graduate student on his way to becoming a renowned professor. In the game, players experience racial bias during interactions with other characters, as well as in the virtual environment. As a Black student navigating the academic world, bias can steer you off a successful path. Winning in Fair Play involves learning the names of biases and how to address them in yourself and others.
Two workshops were developed to complement Fair Play and to address the needs of different audiences. The Fair Play Workshop for STEMM Faculty provides evidence-based techniques for participants to overcome biases within themselves. The Fair Play Workshop for Graduate Students and Postdoctoral Scientists provides participants with the knowledge and strategies to empower themselves to persist in their fields of study. The Facilitator Training website houses free resources to conduct Fair Play workshops in higher educational settings for various audiences.
Mentoring Undergraduate Students
Optimizing the Practice of Mentoring (OPM):
The University of Minnesota’s Optimizing the Practice of Mentoring offers asynchronous online self-paced research mentor training for mentors of undergraduate researchers. Content is organized into five modules that cover mentoring models, mentor roles and responsibilities, structure and dynamics of the mentoring relationship, and strategies for facilitating, and addressing challenges to, the mentoring process.
Mentoring Undergraduate Students:
This self-directed course offered by NRMN is based upon OPM. It is designed to help faculty members, postdoctoral fellows, or graduate students optimize their mentoring relationships with undergraduate mentees. The course predominantly addresses research mentoring that occurs within biomedical, behavioral, and social science fields. However, many of the principles and approaches covered in this course are applicable to other disciplines and other types of mentoring relationships.
Advancing Inclusive Mentoring (AIM)
The AIM program is a mentor training program developed at California State University Long Beach (CSULB) as part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Building Infrastructure Leading to Diversity (BUILD) Initiative. The overarching goals of AIM are to provide a variety of engaging faculty training resources to promote student success through positive and inclusive mentoring, particularly for mentors of undergraduate research students.
iBiology “Building Your Research Community Course”
Build Your Research Community from the Science Communication Lab (formerly iBiology) is a free, five module online course that guides science trainees through the crucial steps of identifying mentors and building and maintaining strong mentoring relationships.
Dismantling Ableism in Mentorship
Working Together: Deaf & Hearing People
The Working Together: Deaf & Hearing People from the National Technical Institute for the Deaf is an approximately two-hour course designed to help employers develop the sensitivity and skills to communicate effectively with deaf and hard-of-hearing employees, enable deaf and hearing colleagues to work together more productively, and assist in fostering a workplace culture of diversity and inclusion. The five self-paced modules in the course cover topics on Myths and Definitions, Hearing Loss, Deaf Culture, Communication, and Accommodation and Inclusion in the Workplace. This group is also developing mentor training modules
National Disability Mentoring Coalition – Disability Mentoring Certification
The NSMC Disability Mentoring Certification is a four-month program for individuals seeking to develop competence in running mentoring programs that are inclusive for individuals with disabilities. Participants will attend several webinars, take a curriculum at their own place, and develop an inclusive mentoring action plan.