The Peer Mentoring Sub-Committee aims to provide support, guidance and mentorship to young clinical or research fellows in rheumatology. It also encourages the exchange of ideas and networking between peers providing an opportunity to get in touch with rheumatologists and researchers with similar research interests.
The main activities offered by the Peer Mentoring Sub-Committee are:
1) Mentor – Mentee meetings at international conferences (ACR and EULAR): Informal meetings between EMEUNET members and leaders in the field of rheumatology to informally discuss career plans, research opportunities, training, etc., in order to build or consolidate their careers.
2) Peer Review Mentoring Program: Official reviewers of several Rheumatology Journals teach EMEUNET members how to properly do scientific paper revision, in order to help them to become independent reviewers. This program is organised in collaboration with Annals of Rheumatic Diseases, EULAR Rheumatology Open (ERO), and RMD Open. The new Edition started in December 2024!
3) Post-Doc Mentoring Program: A program for early career researchers in which mentees can receive inputs from mentors of external Institutions to improve their skills, such as how to properly lead a project, how to build solid networks, how to evolve into a senior researcher and general career advice. The new Edition just started in February 2025!
Activities
Mentor-Mentee Meetings
Peer Review Mentoring Program
Since its first edition in 2012, this innovative program has received enormous attention from the whole EMEUNET community and beyond, and it has been continuously expanding with more than 30 mentors and more than 100 EMEUNET members having participated. Since 2017, the program has involved several rheumatology journals (Annal of Rheumatic Diseases, ERO and RMD Open). This brought new top-level mentors and a broader selection of research topics, as well as a higher number of available places.
The experience from the EMEUNET Peer Review Program has been recently reported in a viewpoint article and a podcast in RMD Open. In this article, we have summarized the main characteristics of the program, the outcomes of the last editions and the recent improvements implemented.
Do not miss the opportunity to engage in state-of-the-art scientific discussions with leading experts and receive invaluable peer review training. The current Edition involves experts such as Prof. Christian Dejaco, Prof. Loreto Carmona, and Prof. George Metsios. Stay tuned to our social media platforms and newsletters and apply to the next editions after the next EULAR 2025!
Post-Doc Mentoring Program
A survey conducted among EMEUNET members revealed that there is a need for mentoring during the early career stages (see also this article on this). As a result, in 2018, the EMEUNET Peer Mentoring Sub-Committee launched the EMEUNET PostDoc Mentoring Program. This program is a pioneering initiative in Europe.
It offers mentoring to young postdoctoral researchers from senior, leading experts in the field. To guide the mentoring process, the program follows an Individual Development Plan, to meet mentees’ expectations and to identify areas where the mentor could provide guidance. It is based on a flexible scheme of communication between mentor and mentee during a 12-month time frame.
Written by Alvise Berti