Mentoring relationships in the processes of scientific collaboration and knowledge production

BACKGROUND: In contemporary science, the interactions among scientists and their scientific collaboration (SC) are critical processes for sharing knowledge, developing human creativity and creating new ideas, which propel social and scientific innovations. This project focuses on a specific form of SC embedded in the higher education context – the mentorship relationship between two or more researchers (i.e. mentor and mentee) and the interaction of social context and knowledge creation. PROBLEM DEFINITION: The concepts of SC and the mentorship relationship in the higher education setting are well studied as separate phenomena. However, such efforts have neglected the important fact that the mentor–mentee relationship in the higher education context is one of the first and most crucial SC processes of great importance for the further scientific work, performance and experiences of the mentee. This project builds on the premise that the mentorship relationship is a fundamental scientific collaboration process whose substantial purpose provides a platform for the generation of new knowledge. RESEARCH OBJECTIVES: The proposed project addresses several objectives: To design and evaluate measurement instruments to guage individual and institutional factors that affect the nature of the mentorship relationship in the higher education context To identify different career paths of mentees through time and analyse the mentorship relationship on different social levels (micro, mezzo, macro) To investigate the impact of personal characteristics as well as system and legal regulations that could benefit/hinder the mentorship relationship and assocated collaboration To study the phenomenon through the lens of the production of ideas, their transfer across generations and to position them within the disciplinary knowledge space to thereby provide insights into the scientific knowledge production process METHODS: The project’s main goals will be pursued using a mixed methods approach, with a palette of qualitative and quantitative methodological approaches and thus through a combination of different data collection techniques (e.g., in-depth interviews, survey, retrieving data from bibliographic information systems) and data analysis methods (e.g., inductive thematic analysis, multivariate analysis, blockmodeling of dynamic networks, multilevel structural equation modelling). The biggest methodological advances of the project are expected in the areas of social network analysis with adaptation using methods for analysis of temporal networks, blockmodeling and the development of survey measurement tools. RELEVANCE AND IMPACT: This project is an innovative interdisciplinary study. The results will make an important contribution to understanding the dynamics of the mentoring relationship as an integral part of SC. At the same time, they will highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the system and the local environment in which researchers operate with a view to providing initiatives and recommendations for achieving a stable and stimulating environment for new knowledge so as to advance the system of science. In addition to contributing to basic science, it also has an applied value: the project results could be directly used in the development of the Doctoral School of the University of Ljubljana and be evaluated in collaboration with Mlada Akademija society. ORGANISATION AND FEASIBILITY: Data on collaboration networks will be obtained from existing databases; namely, greater emphasis will be on conducting a survey, the qualitative data collection, and building appropriate research models. Informal collaboration with the Doctoral School of the University of Ljubljana and the Mlada akademija society will provide a direct source for evaluating the results during the course of the project and dissemination of the results.