Mentoring Within and Beyond Academia considers the role and value of mentoring within and beyond higher education contexts. Centred on five mentoring conversations around SDG-related topics such as quality education, gender equality, climate action and sustainable cities and communities, chapters showcase the link between professional academic development and its impact beyond campus walls.

Beginning with an introduction that highlights the continued relevance of mentoring in a pandemic-transformed world, the authors offer several scenarios to facilitate impactful mentoring practice. The ‘flipping’ of roles places the academic in the shoes of the learner/mentee, allowing them to imagine the vulnerable positions from which learners engage.

By making the mentoring process more transparent, Mentoring Within and Beyond Academia offers suggestions on how to support a fuller and more equitable organizational learning culture in universities, in line with universities’ ambition to respond to current, anticipated, and not-yet-known needs in society. Fitting within the diverse and multidisciplinary field of Higher Education Studies, this is also of interest to readers with an academic background in business/leadership and organizational learning as well as to broader, non-academic audiences.

Lia Blaj-Ward is Associate Professor in the School of Arts and Humanities, Nottingham Trent University, UK. Lia’s professional interests are in the area of academic literacies and practice. Since 2013 she has mentored colleagues applying for Advance HE professional recognition and has recently become an Advance HE Aurora mentor, supporting gender equality in the workplace. Mentoring is also fundamental to Lia’s role as Chair (2022-2025) of the BALEAP Accreditation Scheme, which accredits academic literacies courses for students who use English as an additional language.