Mentoring and Coaching Approaches in European Commission-Joint Research Centre. Annex XI

The Joint Research Centre (JRC) is a Directorate General (DG) of the European Commission (EC) under the responsibility of the Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth. As the EC's science and knowledge service, the JRC provides independent scientific advice and support to EU policymaking. It was established in 1957 under the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) Treaty and around 25% of its work continues to be in the nuclear field today, consolidated in the Nuclear Safety and Security Directorate (JRC Directorate G). The Nuclear Directorate is spread across four sites in Germany, Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands, with a total staff of about 500 people. The mission of DG is to create, maintain, and spread independent science with impact on nuclear safety, safeguards and security, as well as to contribute to the prosperity of the European citizens from both nuclear and non-nuclear member states. The Directorate manages and operates nuclear infrastructures from their design (new builds) to their decommissioning. Its research activities are aligned with the EC political priorities and with the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) Research and Training Programme, embedded in the EC HORIZON programmes, which facilitates collaboration and strengthens the impact of research and innovation in developing, supporting and implementing EU policies while tackling global challenges. Administrative and human resources processes are centralized at European Commission level, where large efforts and means are dedicated to the staff's continuous development of skills and competencies, as well as to talent management programmes. The transfer of tacit nuclear knowledge in the JRC is assured by a wide range of methods and processes. The current case study is limited to mentoring and coaching schemes and among them, to those interesting from a knowledge management perspective, meaning the ones that serve the purpose of tacit knowledge transfer (know-how and know-why). Some of these schemes are corporate ones managed centrally by DG Human Resources for all General Directorates of the European Commission, whereas others are JRC specific.