The Role of Academic Mentoring in Building Sustainable Universities

Abstract

International cooperation, digitalization, human diversity are social trends imposing new demands on universities to be more open to society and become catalysts of social transformation. EUA education policy documents have underlined the expectations that the European universities in 2030 should be “Open”, transformative and transnational; Sustainable, diverse and engaged; Strong, autonomous and accountable” institutions. To attain these goals, universities have to engage in a reform of academic careers. The premise of this paper is that developing a mentoring culture on university campuses would contribute to the growth of the academic community (from students to staff and faculty). In particular, we argue that a multi-faceted model of academic mentoring that includes forms like reverse mentoring and network mentoring, centered on the needs of university professors, should be viewed as a solution for reforming university careers and creating inclusive and sustainable universities.