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International mentoring as a new educational approach to alleviate brain drain, empower young talent, and internationalize higher education

Nature Biotechnology volume 35, pages 285–288 (2017)Cite this article

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A novel program shows that young professionals working abroad can be instrumental in their home country's development.

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Figure 1
Figure 2: Academic levels of mentees, and their number of accomplishments after participation in IMP.
Figure 3: Worldwide distribution of IMP mentors and participating universities (academic year 2015–2016).

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank all the volunteer mentors and mentees who participated in IMP since 2014; past (J. Carrera) and future (A. Fernández Álvarez and J. Sanz Fernández) program directors, coordinators, evaluators, and IMFAHE advisors (J. Kamens, F. Mayor Zaragoza and J. Garces Ferrer). We want to thank IMFAHE's past and present collaborators: vice-deans for internationalization and their teams from all the universities involved in the past and future programs (Universities of València, Oviedo, Miguel de Cervantes European University, La Laguna, Valladolid, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Carlos III of Madrid, La Rioja-Zaragoza-Lleida-Public University of Navarre (through Campus Iberus), Politècnica de València, University of Navarra, University of the Basque Country, Politécnica de Madrid, Complutense de Madrid, University of Seville and University of Malaga), as well as FGUV, ECUSA, FECYT, Santander Bank, CRUE, Fulbright Commission, Asti, and Fomento San Sebastian; also all the international institutions and their principal investigators that welcomed our international interns (Massachusetts General Hospital, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, SUNY Downstate Medical Center, University of Austin at Texas, Schepens Eye Research Institute, Amadeus North America, Berkley University and Karolinska Institutet). All of our mentors who supported and guided us in this journey. Finally Ayana Henderson and Jessica Olive for kindly reviewing and editing the article.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. María Soriano-Carot, Rosa Bretón-Romero, Joaquín López-Herraiz, Rocío López-Diego, Abel Suárez-Fueyo, Gemma Pellissa Prades, Rosario Fernandez-Godino, Daniel Navarro-Gomez, Amaranta Saguar, David Nieto, Laura Sánchez-García, Borja Peropadre & Zafira Castano are at the International Mentoring Foundation for the Advancement of Higher Education, Dedham, Massachusetts, USA.,

    María Soriano-Carot, Rosa Bretón-Romero, Joaquín López-Herraiz, Rocío López-Diego, Abel Suárez-Fueyo, Gemma Pellissa Prades, Rosario Fernandez-Godino, Daniel Navarro-Gomez, Amaranta Saguar, David Nieto, Laura Sánchez-García, Borja Peropadre & Zafira Castano

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  1. María Soriano-Carot
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Correspondence to Zafira Castano.

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Soriano-Carot, M., Bretón-Romero, R., López-Herraiz, J. et al. International mentoring as a new educational approach to alleviate brain drain, empower young talent, and internationalize higher education. Nat Biotechnol 35, 285–288 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt.3822

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