The Creative Mentorship team will be implementing with Music4Change partners the first ever mentoring program dedicated to the PhD students of music
At the end of 2022, the Creative Mentorship team, as a partner, started the work on the Music4Change project. The project will implement a new Curriculum for Change for doctoral education that will offer open access to digital resources and combined learning with a focus on sustainability through music research and pilot a unique mentoring program for PhD music students.
The first activity within the program was a summer school held in Bergen from June 19 to 21, where the Creative Mentorship team presented what mentoring is as a form of lifelong learning, what benefits mentees and mentors receive during and after the mentoring process, as well as what way mentoring can contribute to their personal and professional development. We also talked about the participants from our Creative Mentorship network, about their experience, and singled out several examples of mentees from the world of music to whom participation in the program helped develop and implement their ideas and projects to inspire the attending PhD students, researchers and professors from all over the world to understand better the concept of the mentoring process outside the academic world. We also held a workshop for the participants of the summer school, during which the participants experienced, at least briefly, what mentoring conversation 1-on-1 looks like.
The goals of this program are to strengthen the field of musical research through European cooperation in PhD education; stimulate interdisciplinary teaching through digital and combined learning; bridge the gap in knowledge exchange between education, research, and the music/art sector, as well as upgrade doctoral education through new forms of mentoring to support the personal and professional development of program participants.
The University of Bergen is the lead of the project, and besides Creative Mentorship, partners on the project are The University of Edinburgh, University of Groningen, the private Gustav Mahler University of Music, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, and the European Music Council of Bonn. The Creative Mentorship team will work to create an innovative mentoring program for PhD students in music, which will help them transition from the academic to the work/market environment.
Photo credit: Bjarte Bjørkum
