The main objectives of the Transformation of the Professoriate Mentoring Programme are to 

• accelerate the development of the research, teaching and learning and leadership skills and attributes of candidates to enable them to meet and exceed the criteria for promotion to professoriate levels.

• help candidates to navigate the realities of the South African higher education context in general and the UFS context specifically through facilitation of effective communication between candidates, their line managers, mentors and the mentoring programme management to enhance support for candidates to align their career development goals with the strategic priorities of the UFS.

• positively impact integration into professional cultures and strengthening the academic identities of a diverse groups of scholars.

• contribute to make the institutional environment more enabling to early career scholars.

The programme uses the Vitae Researcher development framework as the guiding theoretical framework of the programme. Although the Vitae Framework has been developed as a career development framework for researchers, it speaks to the development of the teaching and learning, research, leadership and engaged scholarship roles of academic staff. The framework was designed for planning, promoting and supporting the personal, professional and career development of researchers in higher education. The Vitae framework is used by this mentoring programme to articulate the knowledge, behaviors and attributes associated with successful academic careers.  The four Vitae domains include Knowledge and intellectual abilities, Personal effectiveness, Research (academic) governance and organization and Engagement, impact and influence. See Figure 1 on the next page for more information about the Vitae Researcher Development Framework. Applying these domains to the four scholarship roles identified in the UFS Performance Framework  guides the design a holistic programme  that provide opportunities for participants to develop the skills and attributes necessary for demonstrating original thought and academic rigour,  contributing to a body of knowledge through learning, teaching and research,  thinking about the practicality of knowledge within and across disciplines,  reflecting on the social consequences of their work,  communicating their knowledge and expertise to diverse audiences and to fulfilling leadership roles in the institution and beyond. The Vitae framework map out a development trajectory of the skills that scholars of different levels of career advancement need to master to perform their roles effectively. These differentiated skills help to guide candidates’ skills development.

The comprehensive range of capabilities that academic staff must develop over time require comprehensive development strategies from multiple role players. Therefore,  the mentoring programme works closely with academic and support departments at the UFS within and outside UFS to address the individual and generic needs of the candidates and to facilitate exposure to the input of multiple mentors to help candidates reach optimal levels of mastery in the range of  diverse skills.

The mentoring programme includes the following processes:

1. Initial orientation to the mentoring programme: Selected candidates participate in an information session (group or individual) to explain the objectives of the programme, the theoretical framework and the various development strategies that form part of the programme. Candidates also receive guidelines for developing their individual career plans and are instructed to submit their plans to the programme manager within a month after the information session.
2. Creating and discussing Individual Development Plans: Candidates submit their individual career development plans that include their short-, medium- and long-term career goals, the skills and resources they need to develop to achieve these goals and their perception of the enabling and constraining factors that may impact on their ability to realise their career goals. The creation and discussion of the individual career development plan (with the programme manager) helps candidates to make their future plans explicit and to consider strategies that they can implement to achieve their goals. The individual development plan serves as a baseline against which the progress of candidates is monitored and evaluated at least once a year (August/September) followed by discussions planning for the next year and addressing obstacles to the progress of candidates.  
3. Feedback to line managers: Individual discussions between candidates and the programme manager are followed by three-way discussions between the line manager, the candidate and the mentoring programme manager to facilitate better support within departments and address obstacles to the growth and development of candidates. Candidates also share and discuss their development plans with their discipline- specific mentors.
4. Group meetings to facilitate peer support. These meetings form a critical part of the mentoring programme and therefore take place every two months. Group meetings are also conducted to facilitate engagement with members of top management and various other stakeholders such as the international office, the community engagement office, HR and others. These meetings serve the purpose of increasing candidates’ sense of engagement with the institution and clarifying the roles of different stakeholders and the serves they deliver. Social gatherings of candidates also help to facilitate the sense of peer support experienced by the candidates.
5. Training Program: The mentoring programme provides monthly training opportunities based on the needs assessment (as expressed in the development plans) of candidates. The mentoring programme does not duplicate training offered by the Centre for Teaching and Learning, the Center for Graduate Support, HR Leadership Development or other training facilities on campus.  The programme supplements existing training opportunities with activities such as writing retreats, monthly writing spaces, grant funding workshops and workshops focusing on productivity and increased self-efficacy.
6. Discipline-specific mentors: Candidates are encouraged to find a discipline-    specific mentor that can help guide their scholarly development to ensure a strong focus on quality outputs and how to strengthen and expand their academic profiles. The mentors also play an important part in assisting candidates to build national and international networks. Due to difficulties to appoint internal mentors for candidates in 2020, we opened opportunities for the appointment of either internal or external in 2021. Mentors also provide advice about the research focus of candidates, building postgraduate research groups, publication decisions, funding and NRF-rating processes as well as preparation for work on editorial boards, refining academic projects and navigating the demands of academic careers. The programme support candidates to travel to visit external mentors, but most of the work between candidates and external mentors take place online. The mentoring programme coordinates meetings with mentors and arrange two mentorship training sessions per year facilitated by Prof Brenda Marina (President of the International Mentoring Association). 
7. Coaching on specific skills: The programme appointed three colleagues with specialised experience of international funding, writing and methodological skills, and with experience of NRF rating processes to work individually with candidates on the refinement of funding applications, manuscripts for publication and NRF Rating applications. 
8. Access to resources: The mentoring programme provide access to resources such as funding for international sabbatical visits and conference registration and attendance. The conference registration and attendance fees allocated to candidates prioritize candidates who have been appointed in the last two years and have not yet accrued sufficient research incentives to support their research activities. Since 2021 the program also provides funding for teaching replacements when candidates take research leave or work on a specific research project such as a book. We only fund one semester of teaching support to ensure that candidates have sufficient involvement with teaching and learning activities to meet the criteria for promotion. 
9. Distribution of information and links to webinars and training opportunities: The mentoring office share information about training opportunities and actively search for free webinars on relevant topics such as building resilience in lockdown conditions and training courses provided by OneHE, Harvard Online, Google Digital Garage, and Coursera.

A survey of training needs was conducted at the end of 2019 and used to plan the training program.  The training needs survey is updated every year based on the information candidates include in their progress reports. The most common training needs reported by candidates include grant writing for international grants, publishing a book, writing for high impact journals, improving engagement for online teaching modules, using technology in teaching and research, postgraduate supervision (including how to build a research group with postgraduate students and postdoctoral candidates) and advanced research methodology knowledge and skills.  Addressing needs that are not sufficiently covered in other training programs on campus, the mentoring programme presented the following training: 

Writing support and writing retreats:
Since the launch of the Future Professoriate Programme in November 2019 and the ESAP programme in January 2020, the program presented 8 writing retreats (four by Prof Gina Wisker from the University of Bath, UK; two by Prof Catherine Comiskey from Trinity College, Dublin and Academic Director of CHARM EU; one writing retreat specifically for candidates of Financial Planning Law and one by Prof Brigitte Smit, fellow of the International Centre for Qualitative and Mixed Methods Research at  University of Alberta, Canada). These retreats were attended by sixty-four participants. Candidates who had attended the writing workshops reported a much greater level of success rate in getting published in high impact journals. All facilitators are successful researchers, specialises in diverse topics and with different disciplinary lenses in terms of research paradigms, STEM and Humanities/Social Sciences, and they all have extensive academic leadership experience.

Prof Hussein Solomon also presented a lecture on planning for the publication of a book.  Prof Annette Wilkinson (emeritus Professor at UFS) worked with individual candidates to assist them to improve the quality of their manuscripts. In February 2022 we started with face-to-face writing groups to provide a dedicated writing space for candidates. A group of 16 candidates have met once a month for a 3-hour writing session, with this gradually increasing to twice a month. The idea of a dedicate writing time and space for writing is spreading to individual departments where the mentoring group has more than one candidate.

Grant writing
The mentoring programme presents two grant-writing workshops per year by Dr Charmaine Williamson, an expert in EU and other international funding instruments. Dr Williamson also provide individual feedback on draft grant applications to help candidates to improve the quality of their applications. Prof. Melanie Walker also presented a lecture imparting valuable advice regarding international grant funding. We host a bi-annual demonstration of the SPIN platform to equip candidates with the skills to search for funding opportunities and to invite DRD representatives to share information of about funding opportunities with the candidates.  The mentoring programme also distributes information on workshops presented by external funding bodies such as the DST, NRF and other international funding bodies. Dr Van den Berg also work individually with candidates to search for funding opportunities and to refine project proposals.

NRF Rating preparation and appeals to NRF rating decisions
The mentoring programme in collaboration with DRD organised workshops for candidates to provide an overview of the rating process and how to refine the narrative sections of the application process. Prof. Terry Robinson conduct the training sessions and provide individual feedback to applicants to refine their narrative sections. Prof Robinson and Dr Van den Berg also provided guidance to candidates in the formulation of appeals to rating decisions. The mentoring programme furthermore, arranged for discipline-specific researchers with experience of NRF Rating reviews to give feedback on candidates’ applications, especially in the sectors of Law, Arts and disciplines with unique requirements. Dr Van den Berg also facilitated two discussions between colleagues who produce creative outputs (Music, Architecture, Drama, Fine Arts) and a current NRF Rating panel member to discuss unique consideration in applications involving creative outputs. In 2022 we also started a group of prospective rating applicants to create an opportunity for them to learn about how to approach the rating process. The discipline-specific mentors also provided feedback to candidates about their NRF applications.

Preparation for applications for promotion
Colleagues planning to apply for promotion are invited to discuss their promotion applications with Dr Van den Berg, who provides feedback on gaps in candidates’ portfolios and the evidence that candidates need to provide in support of the application process. In 2021, Dr Van den Berg advised 15 candidates to postpone their applications by a year to ensure that they strengthen their academic outputs and exceed the criteria for promotion. In 2021, the mentoring programme also arranged faculty specific discussions with a representative of the faculty promotions committee and candidates of the group. This helped candidates to gain a better understanding of the promotion criteria and how the committee applies them.  Before the candidates submit applications for promotion, Dr Van den Berg discusses the prospects for successful promotion with the candidates’ line managers.