Group Origin and Expansion

This IS peer mentorship group emerged organically after two members, M.B and N.S., started biweekly one-on-one conversations as postdoctoral fellows to address challenges and progress related to applying for NIH K awards in 2015. The desire to share common professional and scientific struggles among peers was further revealed upon meeting other fellows of NIH-funded training networks, including the Child Intervention and Prevention Services Fellowship (http://chipsfellows.com/) and Implementation Research Institute (http://iristl.org/about/) [Reference Proctor, Landsverk and Baumann7]. Networking opportunities within these formal training programs facilitated connections with two more NIH K awardees, effectively transforming the modality to a small group format in 2017. Over time (2018–2019), two additional K awardees joined the group. Each of the six members of our group are from a different US institution (two from schools of medicine, one from a school of social work, two from a school/college of education, one from a research institute embedded within a healthcare delivery system). Each member joined as assistant professors/investigators during the first year of their K award, and all focus on behavioral health and IS.

Curriculum and Structure of Peer Mentoring Activities

Consistency, routine, and having established expectations have been foundational to our group’s curriculum and structure (Fig. 1 adapted from the IMeRGE model). We meet monthly for 1 hour via videoconference. Group discussions balance encouraging flexibility in topics while maintaining a general structure and guiding principles for each meeting. Meetings start with collaborative agenda setting to identify and prioritize topics that meet the developmental needs of the group. Common agenda items include developing and executing studies, concrete logistics, professional development, mentoring trainees, “managing up” with senior mentors, and psychosocial support during times of stress (see Table 1 for peer mentoring topics). Our group upholds two guiding principles. The first is use of collaborative problem-solving. Our collective experiences are used to validate one another’s experience of a problem and provide feedback in an action-oriented manner. The second is establishing norms and expectations that unequivocally center on mutual respect and promoting one another’s programs of research and career advancement.

Table 1. Curriculum topics from early career implementation scientist peer mentoring group

Note: The amount of time devoted to any topic in a specific peer mentoring group session shifts relative to the needs and priorities of the group members.

Support and Processes: Keys to Success

We conceptualize supports and processes from the IMeRGE Model as keys to our success as a peer mentoring group, which also contributed to our individual professional development and may translate to the success of future groups. The first key to success is having members with a balance of shared and unique characteristics. We are in a shared career stage with common career paths (e.g., K awards) and a shared focus on IS, which was essential in fostering the support and impact of this group. We also previously participated in group-based NIH-supported training fellowships, which enabled foundational knowledge of NIH funding mechanisms and team science. However, we are located at different institutions with varying job expectations (e.g., soft vs. hard money faculty lines, teaching requirements, promotion criteria) and are funded by different NIH institutes. This enables representations of a variety of perspectives, while maintaining a shared focus on issues facing K awardees. Having members outside of one’s institution and/or outside the context of the hierarchy within one’s academic or research institution also enables discussion of key topics or issues without the potential for negatively impacting one’s professional development or evaluation. Additionally, our research programs share commonalities, with notable distinctions. Each is evaluating interventions to address a behavioral health problem, with a focus on understanding how the intervention can be delivered at scale leveraging IS methodology. This similarity permits meaningful and informed contributions to each other’s research challenges. At the same time, we target different health conditions (e.g., autism, substance use) and/or use varying intervention delivery modalities (e.g., via lay health workers, mobile devices), which encourages collaboration without inciting competition.

The second key to success is the instrumental and psychosocial support afforded by and unique to the peer mentorship structure. Because of our shared factors described above, we take advantage of the hands-on experiences we are simultaneously obtaining with our K awards and offer instrumental support in carrying out our projects and conducting responsible research. Because we are navigating this process concurrently, we often provide advice that reflects current NIH practices and policies for awardees relative to prior policies or practices that might be more familiar to senior mentors. Moreover, when seemingly inconsequential, mundane, or “obvious” questions arise (e.g., how to change NIH recruitment milestones, convening a Data Safety and Monitoring Board), it can be more appealing to ask these questions among peers than senior mentors or program officers. Examples include sharing information about rules related to awards, progress report completion, clinical trials reporting, and aspects of new grant applications. Sharing this knowledge allows us to strategically prepare for conversations with our program officials and mentors. Similarly, because our K awards and other funding streams are through different NIH Institutes, we disseminate learnings from discussions with our different institutes and expand our research funding networks. This group facilitates the responsible conduct of research, a focus within NIH K awards, by sharing resources and knowledge as well as feedback surrounding ethical issues that arise and often particularly unique in community-engaged IS research (e.g., equitable compensation of community partners) [Reference Gopichandran, Luyckx and Biller-Andorno20].

The peer mentorship model allows for opportunities to reflect on how to be a successful mentee to senior mentors, and mentor to junior trainees, unique skillsets that are necessary for early career researchers [Reference Nearing, Nuechterlein, Tan, Zerzan, Libby and Austin21]. Relying on peer mentorship for tangible advice and support allows us to maximize our time with senior mentors to focus on substantive scientific questions and longer-term professional development and provides space to discuss topics pertinent at the early career stage that may be difficult or that cannot be shared with mentors (e.g., negotiating departmental politics, considering faculty positions at other institutions). It also allows us to solicit advice and support on how to “manage up” in our relationships with senior colleagues or mentors, that is, how to proactively receive the support needed from the mentoring relationship. There is also a substantial transfer of information across peers of what we learn from senior mentors. Because we all have unique mentoring teams, we benefit from learning strategies that have been offered by others’ mentors and allowing each of us to harness the diversity of ideas across multiple senior mentors without increasing burden on any one senior mentor. This maximizes the reach of our senior mentors’ influence, benefitting the IS field as a whole. Beyond focusing on how to be a successful mentee, peer mentorship supports development of our own capacity as mentors and scientific leaders. We often discuss how to best mentor our own trainees, including how to make individualized development plans with them, manage co-authorship, maximize research support with limited funding, develop academic projects from our research studies, build their own academic trajectories and grow diverse, equitable, and engaged teams.

Similar to how we benefit from learning from each other’s mentors, we have benefitted each other’s mentees by sharing materials (e.g., past grant awards) and enhancing networking opportunities. Overall, peer mentoring provides a form of unique psychosocial support as compared to traditional mentoring relationships. There is a sense of psychological safety afforded by peer mentoring, which allows us to ask questions that might be difficult, inappropriate, or detrimental to discuss elsewhere.

Products and Outcomes

Based on our collective experiences, we offer examples of how peer mentoring activities have benefitted the authors, their institutions, and funders. We consulted and collaborated with one another around the development and submission of multiple published manuscripts and grant proposals that have been submitted or funded (e.g., Barnett et al. 2020 [Reference Barnett, Dopp, Klein, Ettner, Powell and Saldana22], Dickson et al., 2020 [Reference Dickson, Stadnick, Lind and Trask23], Graham et al., 2020 [Reference Graham, Lattie and Powell24]). We also supported other professional development activities, including serving as guest lecturers or invited speakers at each other’s institutions, nominating one another for professional awards and leadership roles in professional societies, and presenting together at conferences. Group members have also offered intellectual and administrative insights into one another’s projects without an expectation of a formal role (e.g., as a co-investigator or co-author). For example, in January 2020, the NIH released a notice indicating a new administrative supplement for K awardees to support retention during critical life events. When the notice was released, one of us had just returned from maternity leave and another announced impending maternity leave. These members consulted with each other and the group about their applications and shared feedback from our respective program officers and mentors regarding considerations for their submissions. Both were awarded the supplements. Additionally, we offer advice about approaches for disseminating learnings from our awards, such as publishing study protocols, research data, and papers that support our training goals.

In addition to direct benefits to the authors, we believe peer mentoring has benefitted our institutions and funders. We share resources such as writing guidance and examples of successful grant applications to colleagues writing K applications. Such efforts help to foster the next generation of NIH-supported early career investigators. Finally, our group has helped manage professional development issues commonly faced by early career scientists that can impact productivity and success, including changes in institution and the impact of family commitments. To this end, an important product of our group has been fostering the health and wellbeing of group members to facilitate professional independence, successes, and retention in academic careers.