New National Project Aims to Strengthen Career-Related Mentoring Conversations
UW–Madison’s CIMER Contributes Mentorship Expertise to New Push for Evidence-Based Resources
March 18, 2026 | By By Karen Rivedal, Office of Research & Scholarship
CIMER Director Christine Pfund is bringing the means for better career mentoring conversations in a new national project.
A new collaborative project is bringing together the Center for the Improvement of Mentored Experiences in Research (CIMER) at UW–Madison and the national nonprofit Professional Development Hub (pd|hub) to improve how career‑related mentoring happens in biomedical research environments. The project is funded by a five-year grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, part of the National Institutes of Health. CIMER’s sub-award for its role is nearly 23% of the overall grant, or $609,043 of the $2,701,865 award.
The initiative responds to a well‑documented challenge: many graduate students and postdoctoral researchers struggle with career planning, yet research advisors — who are often their primary source of guidance — frequently feel unprepared to support these conversations. Many mentees, in turn, can feel uncomfortable initiating discussions due to power dynamics or uncertainty about what to ask.
In response, the project is developing a new set of evidence‑based curricula, tools, and resources to help mentors and mentees engage in productive, inclusive discussions about career development. These materials will address a full range of career stages that early‑career scientists move through, from exploring options to making decisions to navigating transitions. While many institutions offer workshops or career centers, the project proposal notes there is still a “dearth of resources for how to navigate career‑related mentoring conversations” within research groups.
“This comprehensive plan to enhance training will enable graduate students to adapt, succeed, and thrive in a strong and diverse biomedical research workforce,” said UW–Madison Distinguished Senior Scientist Christine Pfund, who leads CIMER, a national leader in mentorship education based in the School of Education’s Wisconsin Center for Education Research (WCER). Pfund is also deputy director of WCER.
The Professional Development Hub, based at UMass Chan Medical School in Worcester, Massachusetts, is a multi-stakeholder organization aimed at transforming professional development of Ph.D. students and postdoctoral scholars. It supports leaders across the scientific enterprise.
By combining pd|hub’s expertise in professional development with CIMER’s deep experience in mentorship research and training, the project aims to create resources for productive career conversations in mentoring relationships that are both practical and scalable.
New resources will include quick guides for navigating challenging career conversations and new modules for the widely used CIMER curricula and pd|hub Collection: Foundations of Career Exploration for Ph.D. Scientists. In this way, the project is an opportunity to connect individual mentorship strategies with central development programming, effectively breaking down silos to foster a synergistic, holistic training ecosystem.
The project’s three aims reflect this comprehensive strategy:
- Build a cross-stakeholder community to advance career-related mentorship practices.
- Develop and beta-test new curricula, tools and assessments for mentors and mentees.
- Disseminate effective practices broadly, refining materials based on feedback.
To guide the work, the project has launched a Mentorship Action Collaborative, bringing together faculty mentors, graduate students and deans, postdocs, program directors, career development professionals, and national organizations to build bridges across the training ecosystem. This community will help identify priority competencies, shape curriculum development, and test early versions of the materials.
CIMER plays a central role in the project, bringing extensive experience developing and disseminating research‑based mentor and mentee training. The center has led hundreds of workshops at more than 100 institutions across the country, built a network of more than 2,500 trained facilitators, and developed or co-developed widely used curricula such as Entering Mentoring and Entering Research, as well as culturally aware mentorship training.
CIMER also houses a national assessment platform that will support data collection and evaluation of the new resources throughout the project. “Ultimately, the initiative seeks to ensure that early-career scientists are better prepared to pursue fulfilling paths across academia, industry, government and beyond,” said Pfund.
About CIMER
CIMER is a trusted leader in mentor-mentee relationships, higher education, and workforce development. Its researchers and practitioners are recognized experts in mentoring relationships, organizational change and talent development who have served as advisors to federal agencies and groups providing policy advice. For more, visit cimerproject.org.
About WCER
WCER at UW–Madison’s #1-ranked School of Education is one of the world’s oldest and most productive education research centers. It has assisted scholars and practitioners in developing, submitting, conducting and sharing grant-funded education research for over 60 years. See wcer.wisc.edu.
