Abstract

This panel creates a space to explore and share current postgraduate professional mentoring practices across UAL through perspectives from London College of Fashion, London College of Communication, mentors and mentees. The session reframes mentoring as a pedagogic and relational practice that extends beyond pastoral care or wellbeing support, positioning industry mentoring as a space for dialogue, critical reflection, belonging, and the development of creative and professional identity within postgraduate education. Rather than presenting mentoring as a fixed support model, the panel explores its evolving potential within contemporary creative education and the opportunities and tensions involved in sustaining relationship-led approaches. Through participatory discussion and collective reflection, the session aims to inform future postgraduate mentoring practices across UAL.

Session and activities

The panel discussion brings together colleagues from London College of Fashion and London College of Communication alongside postgraduate mentees and industry mentors to explore the evolving role of professional mentoring within postgraduate creative education at UAL. Drawing on long-running mentoring initiatives developed across both colleges, the session creates a space to share practices, historical learnings, lived experiences, and critical reflections from institutional, student, and industry perspectives.

Positioned within the context of increasingly diverse, transitional, and professionally oriented postgraduate learning environments, the session responds to growing recognition of the value of relationship-led forms of support within higher education. It also connects directly to the forthcoming UAL Education Strategy, which identifies mentoring as an important component of the future educational experience across the university. Against this backdrop, the panel reframes mentoring not simply as a mechanism for pastoral support or career development, but as a pedagogic and relational practice that can support critical reflection, belonging, confidence, creative identity formation, and dialogue between education and industry.

Rather than presenting mentoring as a fixed or uniform model, the session explores its broader potential within postgraduate creative education and considers how mentoring practices evolve over time in response to changing student needs, institutional priorities, and professional contexts. Contributors will reflect on the opportunities and tensions involved in sustaining personalised and meaningful mentoring relationships while operating within contemporary higher education structures.

The session will begin with short presentations from each institution outlining the development of their mentoring approaches, including programme rationale, delivery models, challenges, and key insights gained through years of practice. These perspectives will be interwoven with reflections from professional mentors and postgraduate mentees, centring the lived experience of mentoring relationships and embedding dialogue between institutional, student, and industry viewpoints throughout the discussion.

Following these presentations, the co-chairs will facilitate an interactive discussion with attendees focused around questions including:

• What can professional mentoring become within postgraduate creative education?
• What makes mentoring meaningful, relational, sustainable and effective?
• What forms of mentoring are most needed by postgraduate students today?
• How can mentoring support critical reflection, belonging, and professional identity formation?
• How might mentoring practices be embedded and sustained across UAL while remaining responsive to diverse student experiences?

Audience participation will form a central part of the session through facilitated discussion, collective reflection, and shared idea generation. The panel aims not only to share existing practices, but also to open up wider conversations about mentoring as an evolving, collaborative, and critically reflective educational practice within postgraduate creative education.